Black Note
by sassa133
Summary: The team has to come into action and has to face the fact that one of their own is in great danger. Reid whump
1. a new case

**Okay for the ones who have read this before I changed the word anarchist for sadist because anarchist is not right and I would like to thank**Mermie007**for pointing this out to me so thanks. I cant believe I made this mistake I would also like to ask all of you if you find a mistake like that please let me know thanks.**

**This is my tale of a torturefic. Reidcentric. There is one pairing: between him and Ashley Seaver, the new agent at CM. I just saw the episode she played on for the first time and I would love to see the two agents together. Who is with me, please tell me.**

**Oh and sadly enough I don't own anything of criminal minds.**

_-Do we get born the way we are, or does life treat us well or bad and shapes us in our final form.-_

_-Nicolas Fray-_

Ashley Seaver looked around the table. Almost the whole team was there: Rossi, Morgan, Prentiss, Garcia and….

Spencer. Her gaze lingered on him and apparently she was smiling, given that when he looked up, he smiled back at her.

She turned her head, blushing, most likely. She wished she could tell him how she really felt about him….

Her eyes met Garcia's with her annoying 'I know' look.

If the BAU just didn't have a strict "No dating colleagues' policy, then she would….

A high sound caught her attention. She saw her supervisor entering the room. Agent Hotchner had a worried look on his face. The other agents looked around the table and they all thought the same…

What could be so bad that it could even upset this man?

"Guys, I…." He paused for a moment and looked concerned "We have a pretty serious case in Seattle." the agent pressed a button on Garcia's laptop and series of photo's appeared at the white board, one more horrible than the other.

"We have an UnSub who attacks people of the government."

"What do you exactly mean with people of the government?" Morgan asked, a little cautious. He knew what Hotch meant by people of the government.

"Persons of childcare…." He pointed his finger at a young woman. Ashley could tell she was beautiful, even under all those cuts and even while her eyelids had been removed, so her green eyes kept staring into nothing.

"Mayors…"This time, he pointed at two people. One was an elderly man whose fingers were completely missing and his face was blue. The other one was a slightly younger man. His fingers were missing, but unlike the other man, his body was blackened and it was obvious that he had been on fire.

"Firemen…" he pointed at a not unhandsome man, but the fact that he had no legs didn't really help his looks.

"and policemen…" This time, not everybody kept his 'cool' and a little shiver went through the group of profilers. They all looked at the final pictures and Ashley felt her heart sink to the bottom of her stomach.

The remaining pictures were horrible. The three police officers - well, she had to believe they were police officers. Their faces were unrecognizable. The men had been beating so badly that there was no spot left were there were no bruises or blood. There were no nails on their fingers and it was obvious that they had been tortured, although she couldn't recognize with what torture equipment the horrible deed had been done.

The silence that followed was to honour them, every single one of them…

It was Reid's voice that broke the silence. "Were there any peculiarities to this cases? Well, I mean except for the fact that they were all so aggressive…" His voice was squeaky and uncomfortable.

"The thing with this case is…" Aaron grabbed a couple of evidence bags with some black papers in them and gave them to the youngest agent. "…that the UnSub gave these notes to the victims one day before he kidnapped them."

"What do they say?" She could hear her voice trembling. Even after she had seen a dozen of these kind of cases, she still trembled at the first sight of it.

Reid looked at the papers and answered: "They all say something else, but in the same genre." The genius grabbed one bag and read the letter out loud: " 'You deserve this, but I'm giving you one more day.' " He grabbed another bag and said: "This one says: 'Don't hide. I will find you, you get one more day.' They are all like this. They have the same message, but other lines."

He looked over to Hotch "Did they all die the next day?"

This time Garcia took it over. "No, they were all kidnapped the next day, but found five days later, after…" She took a deep breath "… after the police got a call that someone was going to kill them at that exact moment and that they should look an hour later for the body on a place the caller gives them and… well…" She took another deep breath and continued "…and the victims were found at that exact spot, always exact an hour after the call."

Hotch lay a hand on her shoulder as a sign that she could sit down and that he was taking it over.

"The coroner has admitted that the victims were killed an hour before they had been found and he also notified that all the wounds have been caused before the victims were dead." The older agent looked at all of them for a couple of seconds, so they all could take in this information before he continued, "There is only one last thing…."

Ashley looked at Spencer to see if the genius might have understood this, but he only stared at their boss. She didn't know why this gave her a sting in her heart. She focused her attention on Hotchner again.

"The UnSub also films the suffering of the victims and sends the movies to the loved ones." He turned himself towards Garcia. "Have you received the copies?" The blonde nodded "Good, we can watch them on the plane. We leave in half an hour."

He walked out of the room with these last words.

Spencer was the first one to step into the jet, as he usually was, but that did mean he could have the good seat at one of the tables. He saw his colleagues entering the plane, one by one: Hotch, who immediately left his seat again to grab a coffee, Morgan, who sat down on the long couch at the other end of the aircraft. Rossi, who for some reason never sat next to him, but always at the other table, Prentiss, who walked over to sit down next to Rossi, because they were in the middle of a conversation and….. Ashley. She sat down in the seat in front of him He smiled at her and was secretly pleased when she smiled back.

She gave him another one of her rare smiles. He loved her when she smiled. Her whole face lit up. In the first few weeks she had been with them, he thought her attractive and why wouldn't he? She was… She had elegant blonde hair, that ended in a slight curl, a sweet, graceful face that looked like it was formed by Da Vinci himself and stunning crystal blue eyes, but she rarely laughed…

And the first time he saw her laughing he fell in love with her.

He was happy he was good in hiding his feelings. He didn't think any of his colleagues knew it. Well.. except for Morgan, who had noticed it within the first few weeks, when he couldn't keep his eyes of her. Morgan tapped him on his shoulder and said that if he didn't quit staring, his eyes would probably fall out. Since that day, Morgan always looked at him with some kind of twinkle in his eyes as if they were somewhere with the three of them.

In the corner of his eyes, Reid saw Hotch walking towards the middle part of the airplane as soon as the yet took off. The supervisor pressed a button on the laptop on Rossi's and Prentiss' tables.

"Reid, Ashley, do you mind moving over here and sit with us?" The two agents stood up and Ashley sat down next to Prentiss and Reid took a seat next to Morgan.

Garcia's face appeared at the screen: "Does one of you mind if I don't watch this one? Not a real fan of horror movies." Her voice sounded apologizing.

"Nobody will blame you for that, Baby girl." Morgan looked at Garcia with cheerful eyes and her face immediately looked a lot happier. "Thanks, sweetie, and enjoy the movie y'all, if you can." She whispered the last words and Reid was pretty sure that nobody besides him had heard them.

The screen went black for a moment and then there was a man in the background. "Five days left…" The voice was creepy and bloodcurdling. It made Spencer's hair stand right up. The voice got a body, when a man walked into the screen and towards the man in the background. The UnSub hovered over him and grabbed his hair.

"Aaaaaaargh..." The scream was awful and deafening. "Please…please… no more…no more.. "

The voice of the victim sounded tired and frightened. It was clear that he wasn't going to hold on for much longer. "But you have four more days to go.." The UnSub walked away, laughing. The rest of the film was just like that. Even Reid, who has been in such a violent movie himself thanks to Tobias Hankel, couldn't stand it, but he made himself watch the whole thing. He knew that if he wanted to catch this guy, he had to see the whole movie and try to understand the UnSub in order to catch him. He owed it to the victims and their families.

Ashley couldn't look at the whole movie and she didn't understand that Hotch and Reid could. She had expected it from Hotch – after all, he was the oldest FBI agent of them all – but Reid was even younger than she was, although it was only a difference of a couple of months, as they were both were 28. Although Reid had been a FBI agent longer than she had been. The young agent had been working for the FBI since the age of 20. She had heard from Garcia that despite his young age, he had been through a lot because of his job. Garcia told her that there was a man, called Tobias Hankel, that had kidnapped him and forced him to make a choice between the lives of different people.

No wonder he wanted to see this, he probably wants to make it up to the families.

"He wants to show his power to the victims, over and over again…" She looked at the young man she loved so much and was surprised that he could get a word over his lips. His normal pink skin colour was gone and replaced by a sickish white glance and his handsome brown puppy eyes appeared to be wet.

"He has to show it to everyone: to the victims, their families and to the cops." Rossi took the profiling over and waited for someone to react.

Just when Rossi wanted to start talking again, Morgan interrupted him: "We are dealing with an extremely aggressive type of an sexual sadist."

Ashley was an expert in this type of field. "He is an alpha male and not able to function in his normal life, because he has to control everyone. But he is also a strong man. He needs to be, if he wants to knock out police officers and firemen to leave them that note."

"We're going to land in a couple of minutes." Hotch's voice interrupted the profiling of the agents.

"And I don't want to make a complete profile before we have investigated every single aspect of this case." He looked around with a strange gleam in his eyes, she didn't recognize.

"Prentiss, I want you to go and talk to the colleagues of the victims and Rossi, I want you to look at the movie with me again at the police station."

He looked at the three remaining profilers "You three are going to talk to the families and look at their houses. The UnSub must have been to their houses at least once before." The three nodded their understanding.

Ashley, Reid and Morgan arrived at the house of a police officer. She looked into the young man's eyes. They were huge and the colour was of the softest brown she had ever seen.

"Hey Spence, what was the name of this man?" She always tried to see the person behind the victim. She had to admit it wasn't really professional, but she had to, if she wanted to be a human, instead of some emotionless creature.

"Nicolas Smiths" The brown eyes softened for a moment, they always did when he talked about the victims.

Morgan's voice interrupted the stare between the two agents. "Hey, are you youngsters coming?"

Ashley bit her lip. She hated it when these moments between her and Spencer got interrupted, but she followed the black-skinned agent into the house with Reid tagging along. He was so close to her that she could feel him breathing in her neck, which made her hair stand up.

The house of the cop was big, way bigger than any normal cop could have pay.

"How can a simple police officer pay for this? Or am I just way too underpaid?" Morgan laughed "I don't know and yes, we are way too underpaid!"

Reid gave an answer to the mystery. "According to his file, he received a huge inheritance when his parents died."

Morgan looked at him with an strange kind of twinkle in his eyes. "Can that be the link between the victims? Did they all live like this?"

"No. In fact, there is a huge difference between the wounded. One of them actually had to pay alimony to his three ex-wife's. I believe he lives in a dump.." He took a pause to catch his breath after he talked so rapidly "The rest of them live in normal houses."

Morgan turned around and walked towards the kitchen. He was obviously disappointed that this turned out to be a death end.

She followed him on his way in, while Reid went upstairs, hoping he'd find some clues there.

Prentiss looked at the man in front of her. He had round head, harsh features, musky, grey, mean- looking eyes and was incredibly fat. She was wondering how a man like this could be the head of the fire department of Seattle.

Even the voice of the man was raspy, like he had inhaled way too much smoke and when his mouth was close to her face, it smelled like she was right.

"I have no idea why anyone would like to torture and kill my people like that… we are heroes for God's sake!"

She doubted if he was a real hero, but she was willing to believe that his co-workers were.

"Thank you for your time." She shook the man's hand. It felt chubby and damp under her elegant looking hands. "Can I call you if I have more questions?"

The man looked at her with his ill-disciplined eyes. "If I'm not too busy, you can."

He led her out of the house and she didn't feel relieved when she was outside. This was probably the shortest visit of them all and none of the visits had provided new information. The only thing the colleagues could tell was that the abducted people were real heroes, every single one of them. She couldn't even find anyone they had had a conflict with.

She walked to her car and as she sat down, she was pretty sure she had never felt so frustrated.

A man in a nice suit walked towards the supervisor and gave him a handshake. "Agent Hotchner, I assume?"

Hotch nodded and pointed at Rossi. "And this is SSA David Rossi. Am I right if I'd say you are the one I spoke to on the phone?" The man nodded, just the way Aaron did. "Yeah, I am, agent Daniel Norren."

"Nice to meet you." This time, it was Rossi's turn to shake the hand of agent Daniel.

He continued talking to the agent, while Hotch was busy setting up the equipment they would need to watch the films in greater detail.

Spencer entered the house right after Ashley. This was the last one they would have to search through, but neither of them were really hopeful. All of the other houses had come up empty!

"Do you think we will find something here?" Reid looked around. The house they were in was nice. Not as big as the first house they had investigated, but it was still pretty big.

"I don't know, kiddo, but it feels like a waste of time." Morgan sounded like he was about to fall over from the lack of sleep. None of them had slept enough, after investigating six houses and one more to go.

"Hey, Morgan, if you check the ground floor, Reid and I will check the second floor." Morgan nodded to Ashley and left the hallway, but not before he gave Reid one of his looks, the one with the strange twinkle which he had received a couple of times this day.

Ashley walked up the stairs and stepped in front of him in such a way, that her beautiful mane waved across his face and he could feel the softness and smell its sweet fragrance. It made him dizzy and he longed to stroke softly through her hair.

"Are you coming?" Her exquisite voice, that sounded like little bells tingling in the wind wake him up from his dream.

"What?" He didn't think there had ever been a moment he had wished he had said something more clever.

"You know, for a guy who is proven to be a genius and has three PhD's, you listen really badly. I asked if you were coming?"

Reid gazed at her for a couple of seconds and then followed her up on the stairs. She stood still on the top of the stairway and her face turned upwards.

"Is there something wrong?" She turned to stare at him with her beautiful eyes and he wished she'd look away. He couldn't concentrate on anything this way.

"Did you see from the outside that there was an attic?"

"Is there one?" She didn't have to answer because he had caught up with her and saw the second staircase. "Hmm… usually, you can see that from the outside. If you head back and tell Morgan that there's another floor, then I'm going to take a look at the attic." She nodded her agreement and after a last look over his shoulder, Spencer started to climb the second stairway.

The moment he entered the attic, he knew he had made the wrong decision. He had hoped he just had to take a quick look, to make sure it was fine, but there was no way he could do that. He had never seen such a mess of random things. He could hear Ashley talking to Morgan, telling him about the upper floor.

"Hey, Ashley? I'm going to need some time to explore this place and make sure there is nothing here."

"Ok, Spence! Take all the time you need!" The happy undertone of her voice notified him that she was relieved that he had chosen to search through the garret.

He decided to survey this mess and turned to the right. He couldn't come up with a reason why someone would keep the stuff that was stacked up on piles, stuffed into wardrobes and randomly littered onto the floor: an old umbrella with holes in the fabric was placed in a box with 'Old memories' written on it, a closet which he was uncertain of opening. He regretted opening it the moment he made the movement. There was an object in the closet that he couldn't identify, but he was pretty sure that it had been alive a long time ago.

He walked around on the attic, before a voice caught his attention.

"Hey, Morgan, I think I found something… Spence! I need you down here!"

Spencer turned around, glad he could leave this dump, but then he saw something speeding towards his face. He tried to avoid it, but his reaction wasn't fast enough and the unseen object hit his head. The impact knocked him onto the ground.

The last thing the young genius saw was a sculpture of Maria and baby Jesus, that was crushed into two pieces in such a way that the mother had lost her newborn.

**What do you people think of this? It's my first fanfic and I hope you all liked it. Please review me. I promise that I'll continue this story as fast as I can if there are people who like it. Oh.. and I know the first chapter is extremely long, but my writing is at its best when I have the chance to come into it. B.T.W this piece of writing has recently been bètad so if people see mistakes I will let my beta know. i have posted this before and then she betad it for me afterwards so thank you very much girl love y'all.**


	2. the unpleasant surprise

**Thank y'all for the reviews! I realize that there are people who don't like the Ashley and Reid pairing, but I'm surprised and happy that there are also people who love or just like them^^. I love you guys.**

**I tried to write this as fast as possible. So enjoy!**

**Ps. I still don't own Criminal minds or any of the characters, sadly enough, but a girl can dream, right?**

Reid felt something wet dripping down his face; he liked the cold feeling it gave, soothing against his bumping head. He wondered why it was so painful, but he couldn't remember. All he felt was that pain and the nice experience of the cold.

"_Spencer?... Spencer?... can you hear me?"_

Reid heard the soft voice he loved so much. He wanted to open his eyes, see her face. He knew he would feel better if he saw her, but he still couldn't get himself to open his eyes.

"_Hotch, I don't think he's going to wake up…."_

This was the thing that scared him. What happened to him that his supervisor was here while he was supposed to be at the police bureau?

Shocked by this fact, the young genius tried for a second time to open his eyes and this time, it worked.

Spencer could open his eyes just enough to catch a glimpse of Ashley, who was sitting next to him. He saw her arm hovering above his head and he realized that it was her, who provided him with that nice, cold feeling.

"Ashley?..." The young man surprised even himself with the fact that he had managed to get a word over his lips.

Ashley heard her name and looked at Morgan, who was staring back at her, questioning.

"Did you say something?" The deep voice of the older agent relaxed her; it always did for some reason.

"Ehm, I didn't say anything. Besides, it was my name." She looked at Morgan as if he had just lost his mind, but a sudden movement next to her made her feel that she had had lost her mind.

She turned her head to the left and the feeling of relief overwhelmed her.

"Spencer?" The young man was attempting to sit up, but it was clear it hurt him. She tried to help him by holding his right shoulder. Morgan did exact the same thing on the other side.

Now Reid could completely open his eyes, he saw that the whole team was there and he wasn't in the attic anymore. As a matter of fact, he probably wasn't even in the house anymore. He took a deep breath. The smell that overwhelmed his senses made it clear where he was. The smell of death, old people and medicine. A hospital. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Wha… wha…" He paused. He was amazed how hard talking actually was and the enormous headache didn't help the matter!

"What happened?" One look at his team members was enough.

He knew he was in trouble!

Reid's nerves and optimism were getting worse with every second of complete silence that passed by.

"What is going on? Why am I in a hospital?…" His voice was squeaky and fearful. Whatever the answer was, it couldn't be good if his team was afraid to answer him.

Right when he opened his mouth to plead them to tell him what was going on, an evidence bag caught his eye.

It contained a black note with white letters.

The young genius shut his mouth, afraid for the truth.

"Spence? Are you okay?" The tinkling voice of the blonde next to him couldn't even calm him.

He processed every little bit of information he could remember at high speed; His mind was speeding up…

The sculpture.

The note.

The anxious looks of his team-members.

"He is going to kill me. Isn't he?"

They didn't have to answer him. The complete silence that followed his statement was enough.

"Can I see the note?"

"Reid, I don't think that's a very good idea." Hotch looked at him, not with an anxious look, but with some kind of gleam in his eyes. His eyes looked wet.

"I want to see it." He didn't know if it was the determinacy in his voice or if they knew that if they didn't give him the note, he would just take it, but Rossi handed him the bag.

No other words had ever freaked him out so much:

'_Nothing would have cost me less effort, but I am giving you one more day of freedom.'_

Ashley hadn't heard the words been spoken out loud before. She couldn't keep it dry when she heard them. Wet, warm tears were running down her face, falling on Reid's hands, which she was still holding.

_This__will probably be the closest that I'll ever get to him._

The silence among the agents became almost unbearable. Spencer was just looking at the note, Morgan had sneaked away from the bed and was standing next to Prentiss, both looking very uncomfortable, Rossi apparently didn't know what to do and she was seriously doubting if he was aware of the fact that his expression was almost joyful. Only Hotch managed to stay professional and was telling Garcia about what happened over the phone.

After he had ended his call, it was his voice that calmed everyone down.

"Ok, we need to do a couple of things. Reid, you're going to the police bureau and you're going to stay there! There is no discussion possible! I want a forensic team at the house you guys visited. I want to know how this UnSub managed to sneak into a house, take a federal agent down and all this, without catching the attention of the two other agents in the house. And I want at least one of us in the direct area around Reid, the whole time."

Everybody nodded and before Ashley got to talk to Reid, Morgan already caught his attention. She turned around with a heavy feeling in her heart and followed Hotch on his way out through the door. If she would have looked back, she would have seen Spencer's hazel brown eyes staring at her.

"Ashley, are you coming?"Ashley watched her supervisor getting into the car. She had still problems with controlling her tears, so she didn't answer him, but just gave him a slight nod and stepped into the passenger's side of the car.

The trip to the house seemed longer than when they had driven to the hospital with her and Reid in the backseat. She had tried to wake him up the whole time. She could remember that the only thing she wished at that moment, was that he would wake up, but that was before she had seen the note. She knew from her childhood that being aware that you're a target is just awful.

"Ashley, I can't use you if you're going to be like this." She looked Aaron in the eyes had was stunned.

_He knew… he knew… of course he__did… I work with the best profilers in the world and I thought that they wouldn't notice! I'm really stupid for thinking that they…_

"I'm sorry. I will keep my emotions under control." The answer seemed to please the supervisor, because he gave her a small nod and stepped out of the car before heading towards the house.

Seaver gasped loudly, trying to get rid of her feelings and imitated her boss by stepping out of the car. Before she could make any other movement she saw something disturbing…

"HOTCH…?"

The older agent came running towards her. His face had a concerned expression; she realized that her voice had sounded distraught and after what had happened to Reid, he must have thought the worst.

After he saw she was fine, his pace slowed down, but he resumed his way towards her.

"You frightened me with your screaming. Don't do that again." He still seemed worried, but it was clear he was also a little irritated because of her false alarm.

"What is it?" Although his face showed his contrasting emotions, the sound of his words was as professional as always.

The young woman couldn't get a word over her lips and just pointed at something right next the house.

The supervisor looked at her and she saw his expression darken with irritation at her, but he followed her pointed finger anyway.

She could hear his breath hitch.

Reid was still looking at the paper in his hands. He hadn't let go of the evidence bag since they had left the hospital. Morgan had already told him that the forensic had checked it over before handing it back to them and he didn't want to let go of it if he didn't necessarily had to. He had read the words like a thousand times, but he still had to look at it, to make sure this was really happening.

'_Nothing would have cost me less effort, but I am giving you one more day of freedom.'_

It had taken him less than one second to read it, but the impact lasted.

_Why is it always me who gets into these kind of problems? Why is it nobody else? I break every single static about the chance of getting kidnapped or held hostage. It's just ridiculous._

The genius couldn't help thinking like this, but he had to admit being threatened to get kidnapped and being tortured.

That is new!

"Hey, pretty boy…?"

"Hmm?"

"Everything is going to be alright, okay? You know that, right…?"

"Hmmm."

"Hey, look at me."

Reid looked into the dark-skinned man's deep brown eyes.

"I have already promised you when we were at the hospital that I'm not going to leave you alone and you know how annoying you can get when you are around me for a long period of time."

Reid allowed himself a slight smile that earned him a pat on his head. He was glad that Morgan hadn't changed his behaviour towards him. He hated it when people did that.

The SUV stopped at the agency and Reid was unsure of how to act. Usually, he just had to give them a profile, but now they were obligated to give him protection. And he even forced Morgan to protect him and he still had to help making up a profile.

Ashley and Hotch were standing next to each other and had been staring at the object for a couple of minutes in complete silence.

Ashley felt her tears returning and tried desperately to repress them, but the sight of that… The feeling that welled up on here at the sight of that thing was too strong.

Hotchner couldn't stand it anymore and decided that he had to take some action. He walked across the yard and stopped right in front of the young agent. He turned in such a way that he blocked her view, so she was forced to follow his lead.

She couldn't stop her tears anymore and could feel the warm fluid running down her cheeks. She was so close to the object that had caused so much panic

"What do you think the UnSub is trying to say with this?"

"I don't know." Her supervisor shook his head, while they both looked down, only to see…

A sculpture of Maria and baby Jesus, which was broken into pieces and covered with blood. This wasn't the most shocking part. The thing that disgusted them so much was the thing in front of the holy scene.

A heart that obviously hadn't been attached to a living body for a long time and with…

a new DVD.


	3. a look in the future

**I hope everyone enjoyed the last chapter. I certainly enjoyed writing it. Ok, I did the best I could on this chapter and I'm actually proud of this too. I realize that's the most important thing in writing, but reviews are still welcome ;-)**

**I hope everybody will enjoy this ^^**

**I still don't own criminal minds. And no, I'm not happy about that fact :,(**

"Rossi, I need you and Prentiss to come to the police bureau."

"Hotch, what is going on? You sound like you just got a visit of the three ghosts of Christmas."

"Ashley and I found something. It's very important that everybody will see it." There was a short moment of silence between the two FBI agents. Hotch could feel the fear of the older man and he understood. They were all scared about what was going to happen.

"OK, Prentiss and I can be there in fifteen minutes."

They hung up. The supervisor took a deep breath.

_This is going to be a hard case._

He still couldn't believe what had happened in the past three days. From the moment Strauss had told him to drop every case he was working on to give his undivided attention to this one, to the point where they were now: his youngest agent being the new target of the UnSub.

Again.

He walked to the big black SUV and he could swear he saw Ashley wiping away a tear before he got in. Her eyes were red and a little swollen. The young blonde had been crying.

Again.

Spencer took a sip of his coffee. He wrinkled his nose in disgust and almost spat it out again. It was cold. He didn't understand why there were people who actually liked ice coffee. His mother was one of those people, although she seemed to forget it quite often. But every time she tasted it for the 'first' time, she got the look of a child at Christmas morning.

"Hey, pretty boy?"

The deep voice pulled him back to reality. He looked up in the direction of the voice, annoyed. He wished the voice hadn't interrupted his thoughts, so he'd still be behind the safe shield of his own brain.

"Hmm?"

Morgan looked at him for a while with a look in his eyes that Reid had never seen before.

"I just got a call from Hotch," he said, the phone still in his hand. "...he and Ashley found something. They are coming back and so are Prentiss and Rossi."

"Is it that important then?"

Morgan shrugged. "Apparently." He paused for a moment. "Oh, and he also asked if we would be able to find a DVD-player and set it up."

"They've found a DVD?"

"I think so, otherwise it would be very weird if they needed a DVD-player."

Reid's head was still hurting and under normal conditions, his streak of humour was already almost non-existing, so he certainly didn't appreciate the little joke Morgan had tried to make. He opened his mouth to make a snappy comeback, but then he recognized the look in Morgan's eyes.

It was fear, fear because of him. He suddenly realized that every single member of their team was worried about him. They always were.

This wasn't only affecting him. It was affecting the whole team.

Ashley looked back at the SUV again. During the trip, she had been thinking about the situation, but unfortunately, she hadn't come up with a plan or a profile. It made her feel worthless. How was she going to face Reid? She couldn't even look away from her hands without bursting out into tears.

The two agents entered the gathering room they had been signed to. All the other team members were already there. They all looked down at the cups in their hands, expect Spencer, who was looking at his notes.

Morgan was the first one to notice them. "What is this all about, Hotch?"

"Yeah, Prentiss and I would also like to know why we had to come back." Rossi looked at them, his mouth set in a scowl. She couldn't believe it. That man… in the hospital he was looking happy and now he was mad at them for actually caring about what was going to happen to Reid.

"We found something." She enjoyed it that her voice sounded bitchy, but not bitchy enough that the other agents would notice it. Her angry look made her appearance complete for agent David Rossi.

The agent raised an eyebrow, but apparently decided not to react. "Then what did you find?"

"A DVD." Hotchner interrupted the alpha battle between the two agents with one resolute look. "Do you have the DVD-player set up?"

"We couldn't find a DVD player. However, we do have a laptop that can play them. Is that OK?"

"Yeah." Hotchner handed the DVD to Morgan and he placed it in the DVD drive. They all looked at the screen. A woman appeared.

Spencer was relieved that the DVD wasn't a direct threat to him, because the sight was horrible.

The woman was being beaten by an unrecognizable man and her screams made the young doctor's hair stand right up. They were all silent, too disturbed to speak.

Half an hour later, the beating stopped and the man walked away from the unconscious woman, towards the camera. He zoomed in on her face and despite all the blood, Reid could see that she was quite young and beautiful.

The camera zoomed out and the man came into sight again, but this time he was holding a knife. He lifted the weapon above his head and pierced the young woman with all his strength.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Everyone, but Reid looked away. He couldn't. Call it morbid curiosity, but he wanted to know what could happen to him. He could've been there, instead of that lady.

The stabbing stopped after fifteen minutes. The woman had been stabbed 32 times. Reid's eidetic memory was going to make sure he would never forget this.

"That was awful." Prentiss' voice sounded small.

"He is getting cocky."

"He wants to make sure we know." His voice sounded squeakier than he would've liked, but there was nothing he could do about it. The least he could do was make a profile.

"I'm going to ask Garcia if this woman is in one of the databases." With these words, Morgan walked away with his phone in his hands.

"Hello, baby girl." was the last thing the genius heard before the door closed.

"Hello, honey bear!" Morgan laughed loudly. If there was one person in the whole wide world who could make him feel better with just a few words, then it was the bizarre blonde girl sitting in the office back home behind her brains of computers.

"Sugar!"

"Hey, Morgan, can you tell me how Reid is holding on?"

"He is doing fine, actually. But after all that he has been through already… I'm afraid that he is repressing his emotions. But, anyway, I need you to do something for me"

"Oh, I would do anything for you, my beautiful dream!"

"I've just sent you a film about… well, about something horrible and I need you to look if you can find out who the woman is."

'You are not going to make me watch something I absolutely don't want to watch, do you?"

"Garcia, I'm sorry, but if we want to catch this guy, we need to know who this woman is."

"OK, I will do this if you make me a promise."

"What kind of promise?"

Spencer looked at Ashley. Her beautiful eyes were red and swollen. He didn't know she would be so affected by these kind of things. He wanted to ask her if she was alright, but he was afraid that she was going to cry again if she had to open her mouth, so he just looked at her in peace.

He wasn't afraid of dying anymore. All those UnSubs had taken away his fear of the act itself, but now he was afraid of leaving everyone behind: the team. All of them were more disturbed by the situation than he was.

His mother, oh God his mother... He was the only thing in her life that could make her happy. What was she going to do if she wouldn't receive his daily letter anymore? His death was going to be the thing that could drive her over the edge...

"I'm going to grab some coffee, would you like some?" Her tinkling voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he looked up at her. Her eyes weren't swollen anymore, although they were still a little red. Apparently, she got over the thing that had been bugging her.

"Eh, yeah, I… I could use some. Thanks." He gave her a small smile and his heart made a little skip when she smiled back at him.

"A lot of sugar?"

His face turned red when she touched his shoulder and he gave her a little nod.

"Hey, Spence…?"

"Hmm?"

"You know we are not going to let anything happen to you. Don't you?"

"I do. I'm a genius, remember, there is nothing you guys can hide from me. And you aren't even hiding this." She smiled at him so her bright, white teeth showed and gave him a little kiss on his forehead, before swiftly leaving the room.

He was all alone now. Rossi and Prentiss had gone back to question every colleague of the victims and Hotch was discussing their situation with Strauss.

"Pretty boy, give me your arm."

"What?" Morgan often said weird stuff to him, but this was exceptional.

"I made a promise to Garcia, so give me your arm."

"What do your strange conversations with Garcia have to do with my arm?"

"Just give it to me." The elder agent's voice was beginning to sound annoyed so Reid decided to stick out his arm, although it still didn't make much sense to him.

"What are you doing?" Morgan had cuffed their hands together.

"Garcia wanted to make sure I would be around you the whole time."

"So she decided we needed to be attached to each other."

"You know, if you say it like that it sounds really weird."

"It _is_weird." Reid's voice was getting squeaky.

"Well, I'm not leaving you for a very long time. Get used to having me around 24 hours a day for a while."

"Oh, great." Reid groaned and let his hand fall into his hands.

Two cups of coffee, one with lots of milk and one with lots of sugar. It made her laugh when the other agents back at Quantico called her and Reid the coffee bandits. They were the only ones who consumed ridiculous amounts of sugar and milk. It wasn't a secret that almost every agent drank the bitter liquid black. According to Emily, it was because of their age and they would grow to like it in the future. She doubted it.

She ran into Rossi and Prentiss when she was on her way back to the gathering room. They nodded their heads in response to her questioning look.

They entered the room together and found Reid and Morgan sitting next to each other.

The younger man looked at them and raised his hand.

"Can anyone please tell Morgan that he is exaggerating?" The three agents looked at their hands and began to laugh.

"Why are you guys' hands cuffed to each other?" Emily had trouble asking the question through the bursts of laughter that escaped from her mouth.

Morgan looked faintly amused, but Reid had a face like that of a gravedigger.

"You guys are so helpful."

They all turned their hands to look at the door when Hotch came in and even the corners of his mouth quirked up into a slight smile when met with the look of the two handcuffed agents.

"Reid…" The agent paused for a moment to repress his laughter. "Reid, Strauss wants you to call her every hour."

Reid looked at him as if he had just lost his mind, but he soon realized that it was Strauss who had lost her mind.

"That woman is getting crazier every day."

"She is still our boss." Hotch spoke firmly and made it clear to him that he wasn't allowed to speak like that about his superiors.

"I took a look at the notes." Reid wanted to change the subject as fast as possible "..and it is clear that this UnSub is improving.

"Explain."

Reid pointed at the notes he had projected at the white board and almost ripped off Morgan's arm in the progress.

"Hey, careful!"

"Shut up, it's your own fault we are now connected." Ignoring Morgan's grumbling, he pointed at the white board with his free hand.

"He writes the 'L' with hard pressure and the 'U' lightly. That means that he is overconfident, but let's look at the first note..." The white board now showed a second note." "In the first note we have found, he wrote the 'L' very lightly and the 'I' cursive, which points at low self-esteem. This change occurred around the third letter we've found, the third victim."

"His confidence grows with every victim he kills, which we can also see if we look at the victims he chooses. At first someone from childcare and now someone from…" Rossi's voice hitched and he directed an uncomfortable look at Reid.

"And now someone from the FBI." Reid looked at the notes and a silence fell under the agents.

"Well, it's getting late and we need some sleep. Morgan, I assume you're staying with Reid?"

"Very funny." The young genius didn't look like he appreciated Hotch's joke. "Since when do you make jokes?"

"Since Morgan decided he didn't wanted to be apart from you." The whole team threw a strange look at their supervisor. It wasn't like him to make jokes.

GORK- PIEEEEW

GORK-PIEEEEW

GORK-PIEEEEW

Reid hadn't expected Morgan to follow through on his promise to be with him 24/7 until he was out of danger. Turns out he actually didn't know everything in the world.

Morgan had insisted to stay cuffed to each other the whole day long. Reid had had a few minutes of freedom while putting on his pyjamas, only to be handcuffed again when he had walked into his bedroom.

And he also hadn't expected Morgan to snore or to be the fastest and deepest sleeper in the whole world. Reid had hit him a couple of times this night and he just didn't weak up. Spencer gave up after a while and now he couldn't sleep because of the noise. They were even sleeping in the same bed.

He knew it wasn't strange for Morgan to share his bed with another person, but for Reid it was, even if he knew the person very well.

GORK-PIEEEEW

GORK-PIEEEEW

GORK-PIEEEEW

"Oh, in God's name, Morgan, SHUT UP." The snoring stopped. Finally, it stopped and maybe he could finally get some sleep now...

GORK-PIEEEEW

GORK-PIEEEEW

GORK-PIEEEEW

_Oh, he is never going to stop and I'm so tired... How could this guy that snores like a bulldog with a cold get so many girls?_

Reid couldn't think clearly when he was tired. He had the annoying habit to think of ridiculous things and then actually look them up.

He wondered how it would look to other people.

_Two men in the same bed. Come on, genius how do you think it will look?_

He thought back at the conversation with Hotch in the SUV.

"_Was the DVD the only thing you and Ashley have found?" Hotch was in the front and driving, because it wouldn't be safe for Morgan to drive, so he and Reidwere in the back._

"_No, the DVD was in front of a broken Maria sculpture with an old heart next to it."_

"_An old heart?" Morgan's voice sounded just like how Reid felt: anxious and a little sickened._

"_Yeah, it was blackened, grey, brown and wrinkled."_

_The two agents in the back looked at each other and Reid just knew that he wasn't the only one who felt like throwing up._

"_Do they already know whose heart it was?"_

"_They think it was from that police agent, who was set on fire. His heart was missing."_

Reid was wondering what it would feel like to be set on fire. He knew all the technical parts, but really knowing how it would feel was something he couldn't even imagine. That was just devastating.

-Ieeegh-

What was that sound?

"Morgan, Morgan?" Reid was trying to wake the older man by shaking him. "Morgan, come on, wake up, there is someone here." The other man was still not waking up.

How can somebody sleep this deep?

"Is there anyone in here?" Reid asked anxiously.

Alright people my third chapter hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Reviews please^^

Kisses to y'all


	4. so vulnerable and so unnecessairly

**So this is my fourth chapter and I really enjoy writing this. It's so much fun, but sadly enough, my schoolwork is killing me. So it's going slower than I would've liked and of course I also have my other fics and the little things that run through my head and I just have to write down. But I don't mind, cause it's still fun.**

**I just want to thank y'all for the reviews and I'm so delighted that there are people who follow me. I'm so happy.**

**I still don't own criminal minds, except for in my dreams of course.**

**Enjoy**

"Morgan! Come on, Morgan." Reid now knew for sure that there was somebody else in their room. "MORGAN? WAKE UP YOU…" He was wildly shaking the older agent now.

"Ieeeegh!" A hand was touching Reid's shoulder.

He had to try to reach his gun.

"Spencer?"

What the hell?

He knew that voice.

"Garcia?"

"Why are you two in bed with each other?"

"Why are you here and not in Quantico?"

"Well, you didn't think that I would stay behind while our little genius is in danger, did you?"

"Garcia…" The older agent was still snoring next to him and he wasn't that glad about explaining why they were in bed each other.

"Just turn on the lights, this is annoying." The blonde woman turned on the lights and started laughing her ass of when she saw them.

"So… hihihihhi.. will you... hihhiihihi... now explain to me... hahhahaha... why you two... haahhahaha... are in bed with each other?"

"Because of Morgan's promise to you." This happily shut her up.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that."

"Yeah, sure. I'm a profiler, remember? I know when people are lying."

"Am I lying?"

"Never mind. What's the time anyway?"

"Ehm... well, I'm not wearing a watch, but my plane landed at 4 o'clock."

"And it is an hour's trip to the hotel. Oh my God, it's five o'clock. I have been up 25 hours."

"Yeah, why aren't you sleeping?"

"Have you heard him?" Reid was pointing at Morgan, although it wasn't really necessary: the handsome guy was still snoring like a hippopotamus.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it myself. My chocolate dream snoring like my old grandfather. God, I wish I could take a picture of this."

"Don't even think about doing that."

The crazy blonde woman left the room chuckling, mumbling something about getting some sleep after all. And Reid was alone in the dark again with only Morgan's snoring to keep him company.

"Hey, good morning, my darlings Did you have nice dreams?" Prentiss sat with Garcia at the table, eating their breakfast. The blonde was chuckling while she watched the duo walk into the room.

"I slept like a rose."

"Yeah, _you_ did." Reid didn't have to take a look in the mirror this morning to know he looked horrible. But that was okay, he felt that way too.

"What is that supposed to mean?" The dark-skinned agent looked a little surprised.

"You snore." Reid said dryly, thinking to himself that it was an understatement. The two women couldn't repress their laughter anymore and burst out into giggles.

"I do not!"

"Yes, you do. Ask Garcia."

Morgan looked at Garcia with a look that just screamed for help.

"Sorry, my love, but you do."

"I really do?"

"You really do what?"

The other two male agents were entering the room now.

"Hey, you two are still 'attached' to each other." Rossi said.

" No, really? What gave us away?" Reid's voice sounded more sarcastic than he had intended it to, but what can you wish for after no sleep for a whole night?

"No need to get all snappy." Rossi said a little defensively.

"I'm sorry. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night."

"Why not?" Hotch asked. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I am. I'm fine, really, it's just…" Reid hesitated for a moment. He was unsure if he should embarrass Morgan like this, but before he got a chance to make up his mind, Garcia had already answered.

"MORGAN SNORES!" she shouted.

"I do not!" Morgan looked at each one of them, making sure they would believe him "Do I?"

"Well, if you don't, we need a new explanation for the fact that Reid has just fallen asleep."

The whole team turned around to look at the genius who had fallen asleep on top of his breakfast.

"So Morgan really snores?" Ashley asked. She had missed the breakfast scene and wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

"Yes, he does." Spencer said with a big yawn.

"Are you tired?"

"Extremely. I don't care about being 'attached' to someone, but I do care if that person snores, so I can't sleep."

"Well, I wouldn't mind if you'd crash at my place tonight."

Reid looked a little weirdly at her, before she realized what she had just said.

"Ehm... well... because your sleep is important and I don't snore. I think." she stuttered. She didn't care that Hotch knew about her 'feelings', but she would care if Reid himself would know!

"Hey Reid, can you help me with this geographic profile?" Morgan asked.

Ashley looked at the well built man and mouthed a silent 'thank you' to him. Derek nodded at her as a sign of his understanding. She could only wish that he didn't interpret it the way she had actually meant it.

"We just found another victim." Hotch said to them when he walked in. "I want every one of us at the crime scene right now."

He held Reid back for a while when everybody had already taken off - except Morgan of course - but he pretended not to listen. "Reid, I want you to know that whatever happened to the victims won't happen to you. We won't let it happen."

Reid shuffled a little with his foot. He didn't like it when people were this concerned about him. "I know, Hotch, I know." Reid whispered.

Hotch didn't say anything in return, but the look in his eyes told the genius everything he needed to know.

The crime scene was horrific and that was not because of the victim. Compared to the other victims, the murder of this person hadn't been that gruesome. The victim had been killed with a stab to the heart and hadn't suffered for long. She probably hadn't even felt it. No, the terrifying part was the note on the victim's chest. It wasn't addressed to Reid this time, but to Morgan.

_Dear agent Morgan,_

_I'm not happy about the action you have made to protect your dearest colleague._

_I have decided to be so kind as to give you a note to warn you and two options._

_You remove the handcuffs and admit that there is no way out for the young boy._

_You keep on being stubborn and that will force me to abduct both of you. In that case, your death will be fast and painless, of course, considering that you aren't my main target._

_Please send my regards to the rest of your team,_

_Aaron Hotchner, David Rossi, Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia and the lovely Ashley Seaver._

The note was black and written in white ink as usual, but there was something different.

"He uses names this time, but not mine." Reid's voice was scratchy and the look in his eyes was one of pure fear. "It's like he doesn't want to use my name, like it's some kind of venom."

"Reid…" Morgan started, his voice unsure.

"No, Morgan, remove those handcuffs!" Reid's voice was demanding.

"No, Reid, that is just what he wants."

"And I'm not planning on unnecessarily dragging you into danger. So where are the keys?"

"Nut you aren't dragging him into danger, just think about the profile…" Reid stopped trying to grab the keys out of his pocket and just listened. "He knows he can't reach you when you're attached to me, so he is trying to scare me."

"WITH ANOTHER BODY?" Reid screamed.

"Reid, easy!" Hotch said.

"NO, IF HE WANTS ME THAT BAD THEN HE SHOULD TAKE IT OUT ON ME AND NOT ON INNOCENT PEOPLE!" He could feel the tears burning in his eyes, but he wasn't planning in crying in front of his team. He refused to let anybody die, not because of him, never again.

"REID!" Aaron was shouting back at him right now. "All of us are concerned about this, but you are not going to bring yourself in danger. And that is an order."

Reid shot him a hostile look before forcing himself to relax. He nodded slightly as a sign he understood the older agent's point.

"We need to get to the police bureau as soon as the forensics are done here. We are ready to give the profile."

Reid looked around the room. Every single form of law enforcement had gathered in the tiny room. Ashley was sitting with them. She was still only with them to learn and although she was allowed to be a part of the thinking progress, she wasn't allowed to form the complete profile.

Hotch stepped forward and spoke: "This particular UnSub is what we call a sexual sadist. He enjoys the pain he subjects his victims to. It is also the only way for him to find any kind of sexual release. The act of killing and torture replaces the sexual acts."

"He has a job with the government, but he is probably quite insignificant. He isn't good at his job, so he can't get promoted and stays insignificant. This makes him feel unappreciated, so he takes revenge by killing people who do mean something. He has been dreaming about this for a long time, but he had to make sure he would have everything under control first," Rossi said.

"He doesn't have a family. He feels he can't because he would lose some of his control. People around him will probably be shocked when they find out about his crimes. They'll say it doesn't seem like him to do such things." Prentiss continued.

"For example, the bloodcreek killer. He only targeted women. He drugged them, took them to a creek and killed them there, every time with a different MO. When people found out he was the murderer, they didn't believe it. He was found innocent by the jury and continued killing. It cost the lives of seven more women before he was arrested again." Reid said as a matter-of-factly speaking.

"Although he can be extremely violent he has everything under control. He can be very calm, but he is a sadist. He will never stop himself. These people will only stop when they are forced to, so be extremely careful when you approach him. He won't be afraid to kill you." Hotch finished the profile.

"For now, I want you to guard the place that is assigned to you. We can't rule out another murder." said the police chief. After the agents were gone, he turned towards Hotch. "I assume you will guard you own agent?" Hotch only nodded. The two bosses kept talking to each other.

"Reid?" Ashley asked. Spencer turned around to face the beautiful blonde. "I want to ask you something." Derek was facing the other way and had put the earphones of his MP3 player in his ears.

"What is wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. I was just wondering if you were ok. You were pretty upset at the crime scene."

"Is that strange? I found out that a woman died for me. She didn't have to die. She wasn't his personal target."

"That's exactly what I wanted to say to you. I was just talking to the coroner on the phone and he said that the woman had been dead for over 3 months she had been mummified that is why she looked so well ehm… conserved." Reid looked her in the eyes, trying to find a glimpse of untruth, but he didn't find one. Her eyes were like they always were, honest and stunning.

"Thank you," he whispered.

She gave him a smile and he smiled back.

Morgan and Reid were still sitting in the hotel lobby when everybody was already in bed. They were both unable to sleep.

"What is it between you and Ashley? Those smiles weren't just smiles." Morgan chuckled.

Reid looked at his older friend. He was teasing him like he always did, and Reid didn't mind it as much as he usually would.

"I don't know."

"You like her." It wasn't a question, but a statement and Reid had to admit it was true.

"Some questions are better left unanswered."

"If you keep on being like this, you're never going to get some 'lovin'."

Spencer didn't get a chance to answer, because the lights suddenly turned off.

"What is this?" Morgan asked.

"I don't know. How would I know?"

"Reid, we need to get the lights... arghh!"

"Morgan, are you ok?" Reid tried to find the other agent in the dark, which wasn't hard since they were still cuffed to each other. Reid's hands found the other agent's face and he discovered he was unconscious.

"Morgan? Come on, Morgan..." Spencer was tapping on the cheeks of his colleague, but he wasn't waking up.

_I need my gun, where did I leave it?_

The adrenaline was rushing through his veins. He just _knew_ it wasn't Garcia this time. It was the UnSub. His last free day was over.

"Aaaaah!"

Nobody in the hotel noticed the sudden darkness or the screams of two men in danger.

They were on their own.

**Alright, so what do you guys think? Reviews please ;-) And what is wrong with me that I bring the man I love in serious danger? Umh, maybe it's because he is way too cute when he is in great danger.**

**What do you guys think?**

**Oh and I forgot to tell you about the ages of Reid and Ashley. I know that Ashley is still a cadet but I just couldn't stand the thought that Reid wouldn't be the youngest of them anymore. It's part of his appeal. Right?**

**Oh and great thanks towards my béta. You are a little bit slower with CM than you are with HP, but I still love you, so I forgive you.**

**Kisses to you all!**


	5. the first encounter

**So, this is my fifth chapter and I hope you will like it**

**Oh and sorry for the late update…**

**Enjoy**

The place was too dark.

The lack of light already scared him, but the fact that he was pinned to the ceiling, his feet barely touching the floor when he tried to stand on tiptoe, and the fact that he felt blood drying on his face, didn't help the situation.

The young genius tried to make sense of the figures he saw, but he couldn't. It only scared him more.

"Good morning, pretty boy."

_Why am I lying on a carpet?_

And then it came all back to him.

_Last night!_

Morgan stood up as quickly as he could and as he tried not to trip, he ran towards the door of the only man who could help him. He knew it would be a waste of time to try to find the UnSub. He could only try not to waste more time.

"Hotch, damn it, Hotch, open up!" he yelled, while banging on the door.

"Morgan, could you please try not to break my door."

Morgan froze at the moment he opened the door, his supervisor was standing in the doorway: unshaved, messy hair and without his permanent tie. Despite the situation, Morgan still needed some time to recover from this unusual picture.

"What is going o…" There was no reason to answer. The older man had already seen the handcuffs dangling from his wrist.

"I told you 'Good morning'. Most people answer in such a situation."

"Don't call me 'pretty boy'." The voice had startled him. The room was still pitch black and he couldn't see who was talking to him, but the picture that had formed in his brain wasn't very friendly. The voice was scratchy and joyful. He definitely enjoyed this power.

The UnSub answered with a maniac-like laugh.

"Who are you?"

Still no answer, but he could hear footsteps approaching.

Reid repeated his question two times more, but the only response were the footsteps, which were still coming closer.

"What do you want fro… aah!" The man had grabbed his hair and was pulling his head as far back as his neck allowed without breaking.

"It is not important for you to know who I am. The only thing you will need to know is that within five days, there will be nothing left of you." The man let go of his hair. Reid was no longer able to respond. The pain in his head had made him close his mouth and his head was resting on his chest now.

"They never last longer than five days." the UnSub whispered into his ear.

The young man was hanging motionlessly in the middle of the basement.

"This is the first day, Dr. Reid, and it isn't finished yet." The man laughed demonically while he shut the door.

**Ok, it is a bit short, but I am still suffering from a disease called writers block.****Poor me!**

**You see this?**

**Click it and see what happens.**


	6. Sunshine?

**Sorry for the late update. Still suffering from that hideous writers block.**

**Do not own criminal minds or Dean Saunders.**

**enjoy**

"It can't be." The blonde technician was crying, the big tears streaming down her already wet face, marking her cheeks with dark lines of mascara. "I'm sorry, baby girl, I know. I was there, I could have.." the woman stood up and gave the dark-skinned man a hug. "No, Morgan, I didn't mean that. You did the best you could." There were no words that could have said the same as the tight embrace the two agents had each other in.

"Garcia is right, Morgan, you did all you could have done, which is more than anyone else here did, so don't think you could have prevented it." Morgan looked their supervisor in the eyes and knew he was telling the truth. Hotch turned himself to his team, who were sitting in the gathering room of the police bureau. He looked at each of them and what he saw surprised him. Prentiss was already working on a suspect list with Ashley, Rossi had picked up Reid's task of making a geographic profile and JJ was trying to keep this out of the press. Even Garcia and Morgan had gone back to their work. They were all trying to stay professional when it was actually impossible to be.

Reid tried carefully to move his head. It didn't hurt that bad, so he raised his head completely and tried to make some sense of what had just happened. He found that he couldn't. That laugh was echoing inside of his head. Over and over, that demonic laughter of pure joy.

It made him feel scared and vulnerable even more than the place where he was or the pain he knew was waiting for him.

_I need to stay focused._

_I need to stay focused._

_I need to stay focused._

The words were sounding in his head and tried to push the laughter out of his mind.

It didn't work.

"Guys, I think I've found his comfort zone." This was the first good news they had heard since they had started to work on this case.

"You did?" Ashley was just as surprised as Morgan. Not that agent Rossi wasn't a good profiler, but geographic profiles were Reid's expertise. "Well, it wasn't that hard. Reid had already done a lot of work, so I just needed to fill the missing spots."

"Okay, tell us about it." Hotch told him. "Okay, well, after I had filled the places where the victims have gone missing, I also filled Reid's spot. It became clear that the UnSub…."

Reid tried to turn his head when he heard a soft click.

Within a couple of seconds the light flickered on.

He wished it hadn't.

"So the UnSub works in a circle?" Ashley asked. "Well, a geographical one, but yes," Rossi answered. "It is a comfort zone." "So that means he lives there or works there?" she asked. "Or both. Sadly enough, it is a pretty wide circle, but it also covers a lot of woods so..."

"..it narrows down the suspects and can help us find Reid! That is the only thing that counts right now." Hotch looked at Garcia. "Garcia…" There weren't more words needed. The blonde woman immediately understood what she needed to do and began to compare Rossi's profile with the suspects Prentiss and Ashley had found.

There were tools hanging from the walls.

There was torture equipment hanging from the walls.

There were instruments hanging from the walls that even Reid didn't recognize.

_I am a freaking genius who happens__to have read every single book about torture in different time periods and I don't recognize things that are covered with blood._

Reid could see some of the devices hadn't been used in a very long time. The blood had dried up and was brown. On some of them it had even turned black. But the ones that were the most terrifying seemed to be used often. The blood on them was still red and wet.

_How long does it take__for blood to dry up? Come on, you know that..._

But he couldn't recall it, he was too disturbed.

"So, what do you want me to call you?" He was unsure if he should answer this.

After a short period of utter silence, Reid couldn't take it anymore. He could hear the UnSub breathing behind him and he couldn't take it anymore that his biggest nightmare was still just a devilish portrait in his mind.

He took a couple of breaths, preparing himself for another attack.

"Who are you?"

"No, no, no, no, Dr. Reid, let's agree on this: if you answer a question of mine, I will answer a question of yours. Only one rule: no lying!" Reid thought this over a couple of times.

_If he is prepared to close this deal, then there is something he wants to know from me._

He decided to do it.

Reid nodded his head as a sign.

"I would like you to speak out loud if you agree with me. I'm not sure if that was a nod or because you are hanging from the ceiling."

"I agree."

"Splendid, so I believe I asked the first question."

"I don't care."

"Yeah, you do. Otherwise you wouldn't have been so angry with the words, pretty boy. So what name and don't say your own name."

"Sunshine is good."

The man laughed. It was still demonic.

"You have humour, I like that. And to answer your question, my name is Dean Saunders."

"You are not afraid about me knowing that?"

"One question at the time, Dr. sunshine I will answer this when you've answered my next question."

Dean walked past Reid, towards the wall with all the tools.

It was the fist time Reid saw the man. He didn't completely fit the picture that had formed in Reid's head. As a matter of fact, he didn't fit the picture at all. The picture in his head had been a big man with filth grey hair, unshaven and maybe with really big razor teeth.

_Why do they always look normal?_

The man in front of him was big though, but the rest of him was neat and he actually looked quite friendly. And he definitely didn't have razor teeth.

There was nothing scary about him.

That was until he turned around.

**see this button here I would click it….**

**Just saying….**


	7. pain in different ways

**I do not own criminal minds, if I did the whole show would probably excist of only Reid-centric stories.**

**short chapter and late update I Feel so quilty right now... sorry**

Reid's breath caught in his throat when he recognized the small object Dean was holding in his hands.

"Garcia, are you ready?" The blonde looked at Hotch with terror in her eyes.

"Do you have any idea how many people live or work in this area?"

"No, not really" Hotch said, shaking his head.

"A lot." She pressed a few keys and then threw her hands in the air. "This is hopeless! There are still too many left."

"Don't you have another question for me?" Reid was nervously trying to distract the man in front of him.

"No, not really." he answered with a faint laugh. "You see, sunshine, you need to be careful with your questions, because I don't know when I feel the urge to ask you one."

"What do you mean 'a lot of people are left'?" Ashley felt the urge to smack the technician in the face. "Prentiss and I had about 200 people on that list."

Garcia looked the younger woman in the eyes. "I know, that list is right in front of me."

"So why can't you narrow it down?"

"Listen, Ashley, I did narrow it down, but unless I leave out people who can be the UnSub, I can't do more."

Morgan interrupted the woman, scared that they were about to attack each other. "Then how many are there left, baby girl?"

"About one hundred."

"Garcia is right, that is too many," Hotch spoke loudly and firmly.

Dean walked past Reid right when he thought he was going to attack him. A relieved breath escaped his mouth.

But that was before he heard Dean say: "Oh, don't think I am through with you. I just need to set something up."

Reid saw a red light when the big man turned around and immediately knew what is was.

Ashley felt all the hope she had gathered in the last few hours drip away. "Is there no other way to find him?"

"Not if we don't want to take the risk to exclude him." Garcia replied.

_There has to be a way. I can't let him. No, I won't let him._

"What can we do now?"

The silence that followed did not only terrify the now youngest agent in the room.

A camera was staring directly at Reid, the red button lightening up every few seconds as a sign that the device was recording.

"Nice, isn't it?" The voice startled him. He had forgotten that Dean was there too.

Dean picked up the knife he had grabbed from the wall and slid it down Reid's cheek. The knife left a deep cut and blood started dripping down his cheek.

_He will get pleasure out of my screams, so don't scream._

The thought was easier than the deed. The man let the knife slide down his neck, up to his collarbone, leaving deep cuts. It proceeded its way down his back.

_Don't scream don't scream don't scream_

Dean pressed the knife in his back once again

Reid couldn't take it any more and screamed

The terrifying sounds that came out of the mouth of the young man would have petrified anyone but not this man he just laughed doubling the pain with his joy.

The man repeated the last action three times, so three deep cuts where left behind.

Reid breathed heavily inching with every movement closing his eyes hoping he will last.

He heard Dean putting down the knife.

He felt tears burning behind his eyes.

Don't cry don't cry you already screamed it will only give him pleasure. Come on think how will you make it threw this? He gets pleasure out of my pain, so don't show it. He wants to play a game with you, so play.

He opened his eyes looking right into the ones that belonged to the man he hated now more than anyone.

"Liked that, sunshine?" the man asked.

"No, not really" Reid replied, not surprised that his voice sounded so weak.

"Did it hurt that much?"

"I believe I can ask you a question now."

A loud laugh burst out of the cruel man's mouth, a few inches away from Reid's ear.

"You are a fast learner, sunshine, I'll give you that." Dean walked towards the wall again to put the knife away. "I believe this is going to be a lot of fun with you." The man walked towards him again.

"So, what is your question?"

**please if you want me to do something or tell me or make me aware of any mistakes please le tme know.**

**by clicking on this button**


	8. I don't have questions

**Don't own criminal minds and I hate saying that.**

**Anyway**

**Enjoy**

"I think I am not going to ask you one." Reid looked his captor in the eyes. He saw the brown colour and the red glaze in the white of his eye. Reid could feel the amusement of the man in front of him and he could also see it.

Dean took a moment to look at the young man in front of him. This was the first time one of his victims wasn't eager to ask a question.

"You are not wondering about anything?"

The man had almost no fear in his eyes, only hope. He found he didn't like that glimmer of hope. It showed that he wasn't afraid of fighting.

"I don't get an answer?"

The young man still didn't respond, but was just looking into his eyes.

"You aren't going to respond, are you?"

The young blonde agent felt like she was close to bursting into tears again, but she knew she couldn't. She needed to find him.

She just _had_ to.

She started going over the case again: He leaves black notes with white ink behind on his victims, he tortures them in different ways, he tapes the torturing and sends the movies to the relatives, he wants to show off his power to everyone, he is able to attack his victims without anyone noticing, he is willing to attack people he isn't even after in the first place and the words he writes on the notes seem to be from someone who is well-educated, without any grammar mistakes.

So what does this tell us about him?

He isn't reliving a dream because he uses different ways of torture, or is he?

"What does it mean when somebody isn't particular about the way he tortures?"

Morgan turned to he faced her. "You are going over the case again, aren't you?"

She didn't answer, she just nodded.

"A smart idea, we need to take a few steps back."

Morgan walked to the white board which was set up in the gathering room and started to remove all the pictures and ideas they had had until now.

When he was done, he turned around to face the new agent again.

"So what do you have already?"

She didn't know what happened to her. Maybe it was the hope in the other agent's eyes, maybe it was that she didn't want to give up or maybe it was because she just had to, but something cleared her head. The urge to cry suddenly disappeared and the urge to fight took control of her.

She swallowed one time, took a couple of breaths and walked to the white board, picking up a marker.

"He uses different ways of torture."

He nodded. She wrote it down.

"What else?"

"He warns the police before he abducts the victims and he targets people close to the government."

He nodded, she wrote it down.

"He films the torture and sends the films to the relatives." Morgan added she looked at him for one second and she added it to the white board. They both wrote the things on the board the young agent had went over in her head.

She sighed. "Now the board looks exactly like it did before."

"Always stay objective. Even the slightest change can cause a breakthrough. So what does this tell us about the UnSub?"

"That he is a classical anarchist."

"And if there is one thing I have learnt from this job, it is that things never seem to be classic."

"What does that mean?"

Morgan's eyes looked into hers. "Think outside the box."

"You aren't going to respond, are you?"

Dean was wrong. Reid was eager to ask questions. He had loads of them, but the main one was: Why?

But he wasn't going to ask a question.

_He wanted to play._

Dean just stared at him and he stared back.

"Fine, if you want to save your question, so be it, but just keep this in mind: You only have a few days left."

Dean broke the eye contact and walked away. Reid could hear the footsteps on the stairs.

He turned off the lights and slammed the door closed, but not before he spoke a few last words.

"Doctor Reid, this was day one, you got four days left."

**Thanks to my lovely beta. I always seem to forget that. And thanks to everyone who is reading this and adding this to alert and favourite and last but not least thanks to the people who review this. I love those people. and I always seem to forget to thank them to. How bad am I?**

**Anyways if you have criticism or you like this or you have a request let me know by clicking this button.**

**This one**


	9. the camera

**Another chapter people and I am sorry for being so late I think a lot of people have left this and moved on but for the ones who are still with me or the new ones I love you**

**Enjoy**

"Four days," Reid whispered into the darkness that he had been left in.

"How do I get out of here?" Questions for Dean were wandering through his head but he also knew that if he really wanted to get out alive, he had to get this guy annoyed.

"They make mistakes when they are angry."

Reid looked at the camera which was still on. The flickering red light was the only thing in this awful room that could give him peace. As strange as it sounded, it was the proof that his team was going to know where he was.

The way he was tangled up was really painful. The cuts in his body seemed to reopen every time he tried to move, making him wince just he had done when Dean had applied them to him the first time.

It seemed like hours until he finally was tired enough to fall asleep or rather, when he could finally ignore the pain long enough to slip into unconsciousness.

The lights where back on when Reid woke up again. He looked up, still dark edges in his vision.

"Hey, sunshine!" Reid tried to look to where the voice came from, but the cuts in his back kept him from turning. The motions still tired him out. He let his head fall on his chest, gulping for breath.

"Didn't expect you to wake up so soon." Reid jerked his head up as soon as he heard his captivator speaking in his left ear.

"Get the hell away from me," he told Dean while he looked him in the eyes with his most vicious look and he could only hope he didn't look like Bambi trying to be mad.

Dean wasn't taken back by this. "Or what else?" Reid remained silent.

_Don't answer. Annoy him. Come on, play._

"Still not answering, eh?" Dean looked at him with a sheepish smile.

"It is still my turn to ask a question." Spencer let his head fall on his chest again, already exhausted by all this.

_The lack of blood is__taking its toll._

Saunders slapped him in the face with his flat hand, but Reid was too weak to lift his head again. "It is because of the loss of blood."

This made him lift his head and look the older man in the eyes.

"The fact that you are feeling this weak, I mean."

\

"Really, what part of being a genius with an IQ of 187 didn't you understand?" Reid asked him.

"Still sunny and shiny, aren't we? Oh, but wait, I forgot you don't answer questions anymore, do you?" Dean turned his head away from the genius again and continued whatever he was doing.

And Reid let his head rest on his chest once again.

Minutes passed by this way. Reid let his head rest on his chest, trying to stay awake while he listened to Saunders in the background, doing whatever he was doing

And then the realization struck him.

_The camera._

This realization gave him new strength and he was able to turn himself and ignore the stinging pain in his back.

Reid could only stare at the man, who was taking the DVD out of the camera.

_He sends them to relatives… My mom._

He didn't want to ask questions, but he had to know that he wasn't...

"To whom are you going to send that?" Dean looked up from what he was doing and stared at him for a moment, but then a smile pulled at his mouth. That didn't predict anything good.

"Did you just ask a question?"

"Are you?"

Saunders started walking towards him, his heavy boots making a clicking sound with every step.

_Every step__is one closer to me._

The stronger man held his own head really close to his so their faces were only a few inches apart.

"You don't know that?"

"You need to answer if I ask you something. That was what you had said."

"I send them to relatives. And you, my friend, already knew that."

He turned around with these words and walked away towards the door with the DVD he had grabbed on his way out.

"No, don't send it to her! It will kill her!" Reid kept yelling these words at his captivator even when he was long gone.

**My wishes for happiness go to my lovely beta and very good friend.**

**Luv U Kim**

**And also whished and virtual cookies for everyone who reads this**


	10. burning oblivion

**Sorry it took so long but well first I had all these exams at school and then my computer broke, but anyway**

**Enjoy**

Don't send it to her.

Reid had been repeating those words until he passed out because of the lack of blood.

"Excuse me."

The whole team was in the same room, trying to find something they had missed. Just one small mistake would be enough to find the UnSub. They were all staring at the white board or the case files until a young agent came in and cleared his throat.

Hotch was the first one to reply "Yes?"

"Are you the FBI team?"

"Look, we don't really have time to answer questions or something like that, so if you..." Hotch didn't get the chance to finish his sentence, since the agent interrupted him.

"No. It is not like that. I found this package outside the building and it says that it is for the FBI team who is currently missing someone. So I just figured that it wou…" This time the agent didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. Morgan had grabbed the package before the young agent could say anything else.

"Eh... I think I'd better go." The young agent was already on his way back to the door when then a hand was placed on his shoulder.

"Thank you."

When he looked around, he was surprised to look in the face of the oldest man in the room he thought his name was Rossi.

"Ehmm... yeah, just doing my job," he said, before turning around and leaving the team, who were now all gathered around the man who had taken the package from his hands.

Reid woke up with a shock. He thought he felt a sharp pain in his back, but he was too weak to think about it and almost fell back into that wonderful state of oblivion.

"Hey, sunshine, wakey wakey."

He let out a grunt.

"No, no, no, no, when I say 'wakey wakey' I _mean_ 'wakey wakey'."

With those words, the sharp pain in his back came back together with a smell a burnt flesh which he recognized right away.

He almost shouted but instead of that, he grinded his teeth.

"You see, sunshine, it is not that hard to wake up." he singsonged before putting the burner against his back once again.

"So, sunshine, I was wondering something about you."

Reid couldn't reply immediately. He was too busy with the pain in his back.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes."

He pressed the burner against his back again, but this time it wasn't a small and quick touch. It was deep and he dragged it all the way down a previous cut.

_He is closing my wounds by burning them._

"Why did you start with drugs?"

This question was like a kick to his stomach.

"I asked you something."

He really didn't want to answer this. "It wasn't your turn." he said instead, ignoring the man's question.

"Yeah, it is. The last thing you asked was to whom I sent the DVD. So it is my turn now."

"You just asked me if I was listening."

Reid could feel Dean stiffen and then he did something Reid hadn't expected.

He put the burner against his back once again in a furious state of mind.

"DO YOU THINK YOU ARE FUNNY OR WHAT?"

The burner was so suddenly placed against his back, that he couldn't mentally prepare himself. The genius cried and yelled at the same time as a result of the burning pain.

"I will give you two options! You will answer my question or I will use this thing to cut you open instead of closing your wounds." Dean waited a couple of seconds. "I will ask you again: why did you start with drugs?"

Reid wanted to answer, he wanted to so badly, but he knew if he did, he would put all the control in Dean's hands and he wanted to avoid that even more than the pain. So the silence remained.

"No answer? I have to admit, sunshine, you've got some gut."

Yells resounded through the whole basement.

Morgan just spent 5 whole minutes just staring at the package. They all knew what was inside it. They just thought that it wouldn't be sent to them.

Diana Reid looked at the tall woman in front of the window just a few feet away from her. She was sitting in her chair, as usual, and everything else was also the usual except for the woman. She came by yesterday, saying that she was there because someone might sent her a package that she was absolutely not meant to see.

A ringing sound caught her attention. The woman who had been in front of the window walked out of the room, her mobile pressed to her ear. She slipped past a nurse who entered the room, almost knocking her over. The nurse looked back with a frown, not happy to be pushed out of the way by this strange lady. At least she hadn't dropped the package someone had asked her to deliver to one of her patients…

**What are your thoughts? Please let me know. + I want to thank my beta even though she bends the truth! beta you deserve an evil kitty xxx**


	11. asking for an answer

**And here is another update and it is longer than usual not much longer, but longer.**

**Anyway I still don't own criminal minds**

**Enjoy**

Reid felt the wounds on his back. They had changed from open bleeding wounds to closed and scorched wounds. This hadn't improved his chances of survival, however. He wouldn't bleed to death, now, but the chance he would give up mentally had grown exponentially.

The scorch of burned flesh invaded his nostrils. He could taste the dust circling around in the air. He could hear Dean rummaging around at his bench in the dark corner, but he was unable to see him.

"I have a question," Reid said, despite the dryness of his mouth.

_How long ago__was it that I drank something?_

He was still unable to see the larger man, but the noise had stopped. So he took that as a sign he was listening. "How did you know?"

Dean stepped into the light. It was the first time Reid saw him today. He looked like the first time he saw him: nicely shaved and it was obvious he put a lot of time in grooming. Only the expression on his face was one he had not seen before.

"You need to be more specific."

"How did you know I used drugs?"

Dean lifted his head a little to look at Reid's arm. After a couple of seconds he came closer and lifted his hand to grab Reid's elbow. He placed his finger on the inside of his arm.

"You have marks." he said, while moving his finger over the small scars Tobias left behind.

Reid never realized they were that visible for others. He had always noticed them on his own arm, but he had placed a needle on that point so many times.

"Now it is my turn, Dr. Reid and don't forget: no lies. Why?" Dean looked him in the eyes.

"I don't know." Their eye contact became too intense and he broke it.

"Not good enough, Dr. Reid, I want to know."

Reid had had enough, he had enough of the pain and he had enough of knowing he was going to get murdered in a very brutal way, but most of all, he had enough of Dean, who always looked so calm, but could snap at any given moment.

"WHY?" Reid screamed in Dean's face. "Why? Why do you want to know about my mistakes?"

"It is not your turn to ask, but I will just ask you two questions later. I want to know because the mental torture is just as fun as the physical kind." Dean turned around, letting go of Reid's arm and went upstairs.

Reid was too tired to care much. He just wanted to sleep. And once again the sleep crept in.

The nurse gave the woman who had almost pushed her over a death glare, but when she turned around to face the patients, she schooled her expression into one of calmness and understanding. She grabbed the package in her arms a little tighter and looked down at the label.

To Mrs. Reid

She wasn't surprised to see the woman in the chair in front of the window. She probably spent 75 percent of her time in that chair.

"Mrs. Reid, I have a package for you." The blonde woman turned her head to face her, her blue eyes giving a small sign of clearness.

"From whom is it?"

The nurse looked at the label again, even though she knew what it said.

"It isn't reported." When she had seen the package for the first time, she had thought that was weird, but when the security opened it to reveal a DVD, they had realized it was harmless.

Diana Reid looked away from the window, towards the nurse. "Then how do you know it is safe?"

"Because we already opened it. It is just a harmless DVD, probably from your son."

"Spencer doesn't send DVD's. He knows I like to read, so he always writes. And I haven't received a letter for two days."

"Maybe he can't write so he sent you a DVD."

Diana didn't reply. She just turned her head to look out the window again.

"Mrs. Reid I will get you a DVD player." The nurse left the package on the table next to the armchair and left. In the hallway she saw the woman who had bumped into her, still talking into the phone. She looked worried. The nurse decided it wasn't any of her business and went on to search a DVD player.

Garcia had grabbed her laptop and was starting up the DVD. Ashley could only try to prepare herself for what was going to come. They had watched the other DVD's and with every DVD that had followed, the violence in it became even more terrible.

"Guys, I am starting the DVD now." Garcia looked around, looking terribly uncomfortable. "Do you guys mind if I don't watch?"

"No, of course not. I will tell you when you can come back, okay, baby girl?"

"Thanks." The blonde technician fled out of the room as soon as Morgan had finished his sentence.

Hotch went over to the laptop while the other team members gathered around the computer.

"I know this is going to be tough, but I want everyone to look at this as if it were any other case. I need you to look objectively and to look for clues." The supervisor looked everybody in the eyes for a short moment. The usual strict looking eyes looked tired, but determined.

The screen went black for a short moment when the play button was hit. But soon enough, the light came back. The team saw Reid hanging from the ceiling. A series of gasps went through the room. A man came into view, his head carefully kept outside the camera's range. The man took a knife and dragged it along the genius' back.

For a second, Ashley was surprised that Reid wasn't screaming. She saw the genius bit harshly on his lips, as though he was trying to keep sound in. Within seconds, the pain got too much and a long excruciating scream sounded, making her ears ring. After that first scream, three more followed and then the scream went black again.

Minutes passed by without anyone saying something or even moving. Ashley hadn't even realized she had been holding her breath for the entire film.

Morgan was the first to stand up and walk away. He walked towards the door and saw Garcia sitting in the hallway. "Baby girl? It is over, you can come in now."

"How was it?"

"You really don't want to know."

Morgan guided Garcia to his chair.

"Ok, so what does this tell us?"

"It is telling us that the UnSub sees us as Reid's family and he's not seeing his mother as family," Prentiss said. "I also called the woman we have posted at Reid's mom that we have received the DVD. Nevertheless, I also told her to stay there, just in case."

"Ok, good, I surely don't want her to see this if we can prevent it."

"Maybe the UnSub doesn't see us as his family. I think he just wants to piss us off." Rossi said. "Think about it. He is a sexual sadist. The only reason he sends those DVD's is to cause more pain. He knows we are close to Reid, that was clear from the fact that you cuffed yourself to him."

"Have you guys seen the man?" Garcia asked.

"We didn't see his face, he hid it. I doubt even you can do something with it."

"So I really don't have to watch it?"

"I don't think that would help."

Ashley couldn't stop thinking about something. "Have you guys seen the wall?"

"Ehm... No, that wasn't really my centre of attention."

"It was full of all kinds of weapons. If you buy that many somebody notices it."

Hotch stood up. "Good thinking, Seaver. You and Prentiss are going to ask around in the shops within the geographical profile and Garcia, you can look around in online shops. I, Morgan and Rossi are going to watch this video again."

Reid was woken up by footsteps on the stairs.

"Awake I see." The footsteps came closer and closer. "You know, I did some thinking."

"One hell of an interesting fact." This answer resulted in a blow to the back of his head with what he expected to be a bat.

"About what I was going to ask you and I couldn't come up with something," the UnSub said, ignoring Reid's comment. "Nevertheless, I am interested in what you want to ask me, so long story short, here is my question: What is up with you and that blond pretty thing in your team?"

"What?" Reid could barely speak, his throat was still too dry and he really needed to drink soon.

"You heard me. I would love to hear all about you and her." Dean came into his view and placed an object against a wall.

_A baseball bat, I knew it._

"And to make it a little easier for you to talk and because I don't want you to die of dehydration, I got you some water." He placed the glass he was holding to Reid's mouth, but Reid turned his head away. "What? It is safe, do you really think I would poison you on the second day? Oh, come on, sunshine, you know better. That is not how I do things."

Reid carefully took a few sips. When he found out the water tasted and smelled normal, he greedily gulped down the whole glass.

"Now tell me."

**Please let me know your thoughts**


	12. one step closer to insanity

**I still don't own criminal minds.**

**Anyway enjoy**

Ashley felt more hopeless with every store they visited. At the beginning, she had thought the hard part was going to be finding at least _one_ person who would fit the profile, but after three stores, they already had 5 persons who fit the profile. Now after they have visited the sixth store, they had 15 suspects. With 4 more stores to go, she was losing the hope of catching the person responsible for kidnapping Reid.

The next store they entered was unlike the others. Its displays weren't loaded with weapons. Instead, the store was empty save for a lone counter with a book on it.

"Hello?" Prentiss yelled, looking for someone to help them. "Is anybody here?"

"One minute," was the answer she received.

"Prentiss?" Emily looked at her as a sign she was listening. "Isn't this strange? I mean, this place doesn't look like a weapon store."

"That is because I don't think it would be safe otherwise." The voice had startled the two women. A man had appeared from behind the counter.

"But I don't understand. I thought this store sold weapons." Ashley responded.

"It does. You can choose your weapon in this book, I will order it and you will have it within three days. This gives me the safety of not having any weapons here and business runs well. So, ladies, you want to give it a look?" The man had already grabbed the book before they had had the time to explain why they were here.

"No, sir, we are with the FBI," Emily told him while flashing her badge. "We would like to ask you a couple of questions."

"Oh I see, but I don't understand what kind of questions. My store follows all of the rules."

Ashley saw that the conversation was going the wrong way. She had to prevent the man from going into a defensive state. "Sir, we are sure you follow the rules. These questions are about a man who might have been a customer of yours. This man has killed a lot of people and we need to stop him before he kills again."

"Ok, very well."

"This man has bought a lot of weapons possibly in your shop." Emily said

"You do understand this is true for a lot of my customers?"

"We do, but this man is sophisticated and charming. But if you say something that he doesn't like, he gets mad and unreasonable," Emily continued.

"He also may have bought weapons of different kinds. Which might make you wonder what he is doing with them," Ashley said. Then she saw it a flash of recognition in the man's eyes.

"Sir?"

The man had walked away, which made the two women exchange strange looks. After a few minutes the man came back with a different book.

"I keep records of all my customers and, well, there is this one guy. When he was here, I already thought he was strange, but it was none of my business so I..."

"We understand, sir," Emily tried to reassure him.

"Yes, well, luckily, I keep records of everything they buy, even though I don't know who they are. He has bought strange things. At first he came here for guns, but later on, he even bought a lance you see?" The man pointed at a merchandising list.

"Can we keep this?" Ashley asked. The man nodded as a response.

"Is it also ok if we sent a sketch artist to you?" And once again the man nodded as a sign of his consent.

"Now tell me." The words resounded through the basement and startled the young genius.

"What?" Reid didn't understand why Dean was so interested in this.

"Don't waste your questions, sunshine. Just tell me. Are you in love?" Dean had a strange smile on his face which didn't comfort Reid at all.

"I don't know." Reid knew he wasn't allowed to lie and he wasn't planning on doing it. If Dean would found out, Reid's days on earth would be over. But the appeal of lying became bigger with every question.

"For a genius, there is an awful lot you don't know."

"I don't know_what_ I feel for her. I only know I do."

"Then what do you feel? Magical butterflies flying around in your stomach? Or perhaps you feel dizzy and as if you are running around on a pink cloud." The strange smile had changed into a smirk and his eyes held a maniacal glitter.

Reid was terrified; he had never seen someone act like this. Anger, rage, happiness, sadness or embarrassment were normal emotions. Emotions he recognized and understood, together with so many other feelings a person was capable of, but this, this was pure insanity.

All he could do was watch. Watch how a man was losing his mind while he was at the mercy of that same man.

"Here we go, Mrs. Reid, I found you a DVD player. Would you like to watch it alone?" The nurse had come back within a few minutes, together with the object she had been looking for.

Diana still thought it strange that someone would sent this to her. She was afraid of it, she didn't quit understand why, but she was. "I rather watch it here."

"As you wish." The nurse put the DVD in the device and left, thinking the woman would probably like to be alone.

The screen went black and it stayed this way. But then an agonizing scream went through the building that distressed all the patients. The agent who was still in the hallway came running in, trying to get the DVD out of the device, but Diana stopped her.

"NO! That is Spencer!"

The agent tried to push the woman away, but she couldn't. Diana was a lot stronger than she looked and with every second that passed, she saw her becoming more instable. The nurse, who had heard the screams too, came running in.

"What is that?" she yelled.

"It comes from the DVD, turn it off, turn it off!" the agent yelled back.

The agent tried to keep Diana under control, so the nurse could get past the two fighting women.

After the nurse had retrieved the DVD and the yelling had stopped, a few male nurses came running in, desperately trying to calm Diana.

The nurses gave the woman a sedative and brought her to her room.

The female nurse was still holding the DVD, eyes filled with guilt.

**First I wasn't sure if I was going to give Diana the DVD, but then I thought nobody would be that lucky. So I gave it to her. Please don't be mad I find it sad it too. I also want to apologize for the fact that I feel like a made Ashley into a Mary-Sue. So sorry for that.**

**I want to thank my beta and everyone who reads this, faved this and/or reviewed.**

**Thank you**

**Anyway if you want to review I would appreciate it, if you don't I understand and I will still appreciate you for reading this.**

***hands everyone who reads this cookies***


	13. everything hurts

**stil don't own criminal minds (though that was clea, because everything would be reid centric then)**

**anyway enjoy**

The nurse could only think about Mrs. Reid.

The poor woman. Spencer. Her son is everything for her.

She didn't even see the agent that was trying to get her attention, until the agent tried to grab the DVD. The nurse, however, had a firm grip on it.

"No," she said firmly.

"Miss, I need to get that DVD to my supervisors." The agent tried to convince her, but the nurse was too stubborn to let go of the object and the agent was really losing her patience.

"Alright, that's enough!" she told her after 30 minutes of bickering. "You will give me that DVD or I will get a warrant."

The nurse really couldn't use even more commotion in her hospital, so against her own wishes, she let go.

"Thank you," were the last words the nurse heard from the woman who had had the job to prevent this whole situation from happening.

Prentiss and Seaver came back after they had visited every weapon store within the geographic profile. They found a total of 19 doubtful buyers , which meant that they had really narrowed down the number of suspects. If they would compare the suspects they had found, with the persons Garcia had found in her online search and the persons on the list of people they had suspected before. Then there would be a chance that they'd find the UnSub.

"Hotch?" Prentiss was so eager to tell about their success, that she didn't even see the sad faces of her team or the second DVD on the table. "We have found a sma…" she was stopped by Seaver in the middle of her sentence.

Just when she wanted to ask her why, she saw the new DVD.

"Where did that come from?" She grabbed the thing like she wanted to be sure it was real "But he never sends a second one." Her voice sounded unsure and she stared at the people around her, silently begging them to explain this to her.

"Emily," Hotch tried to start, but she wouldn't let him.

"No, Hotch, don't _Emily_ me! He never sends a second DVD! Why would he start now? This is not in his pattern." she rambled, before Hotch interrupted her angrily.

"EMILY!"

The woman looked her boss in the eyes, but looked away just as quickly.

"He didn't send this to us, he sent it to Reid's mother."

Her eyes widened in shock and she bit down on her lip, trying to keep herself from screaming how unfair this was and how sorry she felt for the woman, whose son was everything to her.

"I don't understand! I told that agent to stay with her," she said when she had calmed down enough to open her mouth without screaming.

"Apparently, that agent went into the hallway when you called and that was enough time for the nurse to play the damn thing." Morgan said, while staring at the pigeons outside the window who were struggling to find food. The only sign of his anger came through his voice when he spoke the last three words with such disgust.

"I told her to stay with Reid's mother, no matter what, and to inspect everything that would come to her. How could she be so stupid?" Emily ranted, throwing her hands up in frustration.

"Emily!" Hotch had to stop his co-worker from getting angry again. "We are not here to blame anyone or to aim our rage to one of our own." It was obvious those last words were addressed to Morgan, who just shrugged. "Is that clear to everyone?"

Hotch directly continued after this question, clearly not waiting for an answer. "Okay then. Prentiss, did you and Seaver find anything?"

"Yeah. We…" She felt uneasy, talking to her boss and she hesitated with every word "We found a small number of potential defendants. Seaver has written down their names. Ashley?"

All heads turned towards Ashley at the mention of her name. Without any of the team noticing, she had walked up to the table, still clutching the DVD in her hands and staring at it, ignoring the rest of the team.

"Ashley?" Prentiss tried for a second time, a little louder this time.

"Yeah, what?"

"The names."

"Eh, yeah, of course, here." She grabbed her notebook out of her pocket and gave it to her.

"Thank you." Prentiss tried to hide the concern in her eyes, but she failed miserably.

Hotch called the team's attention back to the case, after having spent too much time on Ashley, while Reid was still in danger. "Okay. We are running out of time, so I am going to split us up. Rossi! You and I are going to watch the second DVD too." It was clear he did not want the other team-members watching it too, afraid that they wouldn't be able to keep their emotions under control. "Prentiss, you, Seaver, Morgan and Garcia are going to compare these suspects…" he told them while pointing at the small book Prentiss was holding. "…with the earlier ones. Garcia?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I assume you have looked at the online stores."

"I did, sir. I have a total of 9 suspicious people."

"Good. Let's get to work."

From the outside, Dean didn't seem mad anymore, but Reid was still scared. That action was so out of profile that he was scared that Dean was escalating and if he was, Reid wasn't so sure if he even was going to make it through the next days.

After the sudden outburst, Dean had just stood there and stared at him. Reid wasn't sure how to react anymore. He wasn't sure what movements would anger the man further. He wasn't sure what things he could say without angering the man. So the two men just stared at each other for what felt like ages.

"So?" Dean was the first one to break the silence, even though he had looked completely relaxed during the staring competition.

"So what?" Reid tried to speak softly and calmly in an attempt to avoid getting Dean angry again.

"Oh, sunshine, you disappoint me. Well, I'll give you a hint." Dean seemed to have found his old self again "It is a very easy one. What have we been doing these days?"

"You want me to ask you a question." It wasn't a question, because Reid already knew the answer and it didn't make him feel better. The lasts question that he had asked, hadn't been answer honestly and he doubted he'd get an honest answer now.

"Now, what is your question, sunshine?"

For one moment Reid thought he saw a glimpse of the madness in his captivator's eyes, but then it was gone again. Reid was so distressed by this, that he was silent. Apparently for too long.

"Now, come on, sunshine. Don't tell me you have nothing to ask. I thought you always wanted to know more."

"Why me?"

Dean looked him in the eye and spoke every word slowly and clearly. "Because I thought you would be fun to toy around with. And I was right."

Again, an answer that made Reid want to punch this guy. "But why?"

"No, no, no, no, sunshine just one question at the time. Remember?" With this, Dean walked away.

"This was day three, sunshine, you have two days left."

Day three, but...

The absence of sunlight or a clock and the passing out had made him lose track of time and Dean hadn't told him when day two had ended.

_I lost a whole day._

_**I hope everybody liked this chapter. Let me know your thoughts by a review and thank you for reading, faving and reviewing.**_

_**thank you beta. You are awesome!**_


	14. don't let this change

**still don't own criminal minds.**

**enjoy**

Reid had been staring into the darkness for a long time, repeating the last words Dean had said to him this day.

"Two days left."

"Two days left."

"Two days left."

Just two days before it might be too late for his team to save him.

He wasn't even sure he was going to make it through those last two days. Dean was clearly escalating and becoming more dangerous with the minute.

Reid thought back to the moment Dean started to lose his mind. Reid couldn't let the outburst go; he knew it didn't fit the profile and that made him nervous. At the moment, it was impossible to predict the next move of his captivator.

Saunder's explosion didn't seem new. It seemed like Dean had felt this way the whole time and had been covering it up with the cool and violent appearance he had first seen. The appearance that made him the sadist he is.

Hotch looked at the older man. Rossi was the only one of the team, Hotch excluded, who could keep his emotions in control. Always hiding behind his unruffled façade. The DVD that had been sent to Mrs. Reid was exactly the same as the one they had received.

"Nothing new," he said, his voice trembling. It was the first time he had seen Rossi this affected.

They had watched the DVD 3 times now and they still hadn't noticed anything that could help them find the youngest one of their team. He had noticed other things, though, like the fact that Reid's screams weren't that loud, but showed immense suffering and were nerve racking. The weapons that Seaver had noticed during the first time he had seen the video, were indeed scary and usual. He recognized some of them as ancient torturing equipment, while others were unknown to him.

A knock on the door startled him and brought him out of his thinking process.

Prentiss opened the door without waiting for an answer. Her eyes still showed signs of remorse for her outburst earlier.

"Ehm. We are finished comparing, but we still have people left."

"Alright, we are coming," Hotch said, standing up. Rossi followed him on the way to the door, casting one last look at the black screen.

"So, how many are there left?" Rossi asked, looking at Seaver, who was sleeping on the couch.

When Morgan saw Hotch's questioning look, he decided to step up for her. "She fell asleep for the first time in three days. We thought we should give her a break."

Hotch nodded as a sign of his approval. None of the team-members had had a good night's rest during the past days. Sometimes, one of them could sleep for a couple of hours when the rest continued working. He changed his attention from the young sleeping woman to their technician.

"Garcia?"

The mentioning of her name was enough to signal her to explain what they had done. "Yes, sir. I added the names I have collected to the ones Prentiss and Seaver have collected and then I crossed them with the ones on our earlier list. This didn't exclude many people, unfortunately. which, as no surprise, didn't exclude many of them so we followed the profile. The ones with important jobs are crossed off the list. Like, we are suspicious about one certain fireman who has bought some really unusual things. Which left us with 9 people. Then I ruled out the ones who are still married, because according to Prentiss, we can't rule out the ones who are divorced or might have a kid somewhere. And in the end that leaves us with one person."

Hotch looked at the team and saw they all had the exact same hope in their eyes.

_Please let this be our guy._

Reid looked around the basement. During the time Dean was gone, he usually turned off the light, but now it was on. Spencer didn't know if it was because he wanted him to see the horror of the place where he was probably going to die or that he simply had forgotten to turn it off. Either way, Reid was happy he wasn't in the dark anymore.

He hated the dark, always had. You never knew what was there in the dark and he just didn't like to be surprised. Though this whole thing had been one terrifying surprise for him.

He had only seen the walls, which were always covered with a little glow of light which radiated through the small opening at the bottom of the door. He avoided to look at the walls, already knowing what was on them. He continued his examination. The kit Dean was always rummaging in was open. It was a black cheap looking kit, but the stuff inside was a lot more interesting.

He thought Dean might have hidden other weapons in it, but the things that where truly in it, where a lot less threatening. Less threatening but more shocking.

A withered bouquet of flowers, which Reid thought had been beautiful flowers once, just peeked out over the edge. He could see the light reflecting on old jewels. He saw the white fabric of something he assumed was a dress. The most stunning object was the picture of a beautiful young woman on the inside of the lid.

**hope you guys liked it and yes I know it is shorter again, but I can't help it and I also wanted to say that the updates are getting less (again) because school has started and I am in my final year. sorry.**


	15. first lie

**don't own criminal minds, but how awesome would it be if I did?**

"Where are his properties, Garcia?" Hotch asked, eager to find their youngster.

"There is this small place outside the town and a house on the other side of it. I sent a map to your phones."

"Ok, let's go" Hotch commanded right before running out of the door "Morgan, JJ and Rossi, go to the property out of the city. The rest of you will go with me to his house." While the rest of the team ran to the SUV's, he went to the police chef to ask for back-up.

"Alright, Garcia, you are on speaker. Morgan, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Hotch. We will be at his place within the next 30 minutes."

"Garcia, what can you tell us?"

"Alright, so this guy is named Dean Saunders and he is super creepy. Two years ago, his wife died in a really suspicious accident. I can't believe there wasn't more research done on that case. His wife, Anna, was brought into the hospital with severe head trauma and she actually could have been saved if it wasn't for the fact that she had been dead for three days. However, her husband claimed that he had been on a business trip and that he hadn't been home when the accident happened. It was never proven and the case got dismissed."

"Dismissed?" Hotch couldn't find an emotion in Morgan's voice, but he was sure he was feeling the same.

"How is it possible that this didn't show up earlier?"

"With dismissed, I _really_ mean dismissed, like the case disappeared completely. And I would actually like to know from you, agent Norren, why did you ever think it would be a good idea to hide a dangerous lunatic?" It was obvious Garcia had reached her rare state of anger, which would only happen when one of her babies was in danger.

Hotch hurriedly shut off the speaker and brought the device to his ear. Despite everything, they still needed to work with the guy and pissing him off would only create fights within the team.

"Garcia, please..." Hotch started, but before he had the chance to finish his sentence, Garcia cut him off.

"No, you listen, Reid is in danger and we have been trying to save him while that man knew all along that that..." The blonde technician burst into tears.

Hotch turned off the phone. The rest of the ride was spent ignoring each other, knowing he would be unable to comfort the other police man and if he was completely truthful, he knew he was unable to listen to it.

Reid wanted to know who that woman was and why this man had a picture of her. It couldn't be his love.

_Sadists can't feel love. Maybe it is his wife. No, he wouldn't keep a picture of her when he could see her__at any time he wanted. His dead wife or girlfriend perhaps. Maybe even a sister. It must be someone who has turned him to killing otherwise he wouldn't keep that picture and all those other things in this place._

A loud thump shook him out of his thoughts, bringing him back to reality. One look upwards was enough to give him a view of Dean's shadow. Still unable to move properly due to the wounds on his back, he stayed still, his head facing into the direction of the box. Knowing it wouldn't end well for him if Dean would find out he knew what was in that box, he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, silently listening to the footsteps closing in on him. Two hands grabbed him firmly, one hand on his back and one on his chest. Dean started to turn him around. Reid could feel the hands putting pressure on his wounds and he had to use all of his willpower not to scream out.

He heard Dean closing something, which he could only assume was the box with the picture on the lid.

"Come on, sunshine, wakey wakey."

Reid still tried to make it look like he was not awake, desperately trying to make it believable.

"Come on, I have a question for you." He heard once again the footsteps, signaling that his captivator was close by.

"Wake up!" These words came with a blow in the stomach which made the young genius gasp desperately for breath.

"Don't try to fool me," Dean whispered in his ear when Reid tried to catch his breath.

"Oh, sunshine, these few past days were so much fun. I almost feel bad that it will end so soon." He let out an exaggerated sigh. "Ah, well, nothing you can do about it."

Reid felt the anger he had felt before rise again. Dean walked to the wall and picked up the bat he had left there days before and started to walk around him in circles and all he could do, was listen to the steps.

"So?" Dean asked.

"So, what?"

"So did you see it? This is my question, answer it."

"Did I see what?" Dean was apparently not happy with his obliviousness and hit against his head with the bat. Everything went black and hazy for a second.

"Did you see the box? I forgot to close it and now I am asking you if you have seen what's in it."

Reid wasn't sure what to answer. Saying yes would surely cause another outburst, but if he said no and Dean would find out he had lied, his chances of coming out of here unharmed, would be even smaller.

"Well?"

He decided to go with the smallest chance he had.

"No, I don't know what you are talking about."

Two blows against his head made everything hazy again and one massive hit against his back made the young genius scream.

"You don't listen, do you?" At that moment Reid knew he had made a huge mistake. Dean was angry, really angry. The latest outburst seemed like a small stumble compared to this when Dean started hitting him with the bat at every place he could reach. Every stump, blow and hit crushed everything he had left: his unharmed flesh, his breath and his hope. Every blow hurt more than the one before.

"Stop!" he tried to scream, but he was only able to let out a small whisper. He could feel his ribs breaking, together with his shoulder and the stinging pain in his leg didn't bode well either. One final smack against his head and everything turned dark, but for some reason, this time, it seemed different than before.

Hotch looked at the young blond woman and the slightly older brunette through his rear-view mirror. Prentiss was mumbling to herself but it was quiet enough that no one else could hear exactly what she said Seaver was fiddling with her hair, staring into the darkness of the night through the window.

"We'll arrive within 5 minutes. Are you ready." Both women snapped back to reality.

"Hotch what if we are too late. I mean Reid he can be.." not being able to speak the last word Prentiss shut her mouth closely.

"We aren't too late." Seaver spoke suddenly. A few seconds after these words, their eyes met and Hotch saw a new found hope in the eyes of the young blonde. Instead of trying to give her some support, like he had intended to do when he had started speaking, he found support with her.

The SUV stopped and the FBI agents and the other nine police officers who were assigned to them, gathered themselves around the supervisor.

"I want every member of my team to take three agents with them. " The officers nodded in response. "And I want you to come with me too." The latter was directed towards the police chief who only lowered his eyes. He hoped it was out of guilt.

The three teams situated themselves in and around the house. Seaver's team was given the backyard and the adjoining part of the forest. Prentiss was given the back entrance and the upper part of the house. Hotch's team was going to handle the ground floor and the cellar.

Sending a signal through the microphones hidden in their jackets, he indicated the go in. Holding his gun in front of him, he passed through the front door and headed straight towards the living room. Hearing different agents calling "clear" around him, he felt all the anticipation of a good ending drowning away from him.

"Hotch, the whole top floor is ok and there is nothing weird." Prentiss said through the microphone.

It was only a few minutes later, when Seaver announced that the huge backyard was fine too and that they had started to search the woods, even though there was only a small chance that their lost agent was there.

The only place in the house left was the cellar. "Agent Norren, come with me." Together with the police chief, Hotch went down the stairs, counting on the other agent to have his back.

There appeared to be nothing in the pitch black place until Norren switched on the lights.

A small piddle of blood was in the middle of the dark room.

_Reid, where are you?_

Morgan felt his heartbeat fastening, praying to god for the first time in a long time. This was the place, it just had to be.

"Rossi, JJ, I will go first and you guys will be right behind me." The two other agents nodded in response, both having that weird mixture in their eyes of hope and pain.

Dividing the police officers among them, they entered the property. Immediately, Rossi turned right and JJ turned left, making the only direction for him to be straight ahead.

"Clear." he heard himself saying, instinctively when he saw the first room was safe.

He was listening to all the other agents checking in with the status of the searched rooms. Morgan didn't understand. They had been so sure that they had found the right guy, but nothing in this house seemed anything but usual and ordinary.

"Morgan." Prentiss waved him over, signing him to help checking the surroundings.

Passing through the door, the worst fear they had had in the last few days, materialized in front of their eyes.

A well build man who they could only assume was Dean Saunders was kneeling at a freshly dug spot of dirt with dried lilies in his hand.

**so I need to apologize I promised it would be longer, but it isn't so sorry.**

**I also wanted to let you guys know that my friend got hit by a car she is alright. She has a concussion and lots of bruises, but she is also my beta and due to the concussion not allowed to read for a while. So please understand that the next chapter isn't going to be here for a while. Sorry.**

**anyway let me know your thoughts by clicking this beautiful button.**


	16. sometimes life isn't fair

Just a few seconds are enough to change a day.

Just a few seconds are enough to take someone away.

Just a few seconds are enough to kill someone.

And just a few seconds were enough to make Morgan realize where Reid was.

Everything around him changed into a daze the moment he saw the spot. JJ's voice screaming to him vanished into the background, the other agents entering the garden and himself running faded away.

He had already started digging frantically when JJ fell next to him and started digging with the same hysterical movements. With the first heaps of earth he threw aside, he was afraid they were too late, but with every following dig, he was afraid Reid wasn't there at all. They had already dug about 2 feet and there was still no sign of the young genius. Instead, they had stumbled upon all kind of objects ranging from a dress to china. But then a dull sound emerged from JJ's side. A second look made clear what it was and it didn't loosen the knot in his stomach.

Hotchner was walking around restlessly while the forensic examiners were collecting evidence, including the blood on the floor. Being at the end of his patience, he walked towards Norren, ready to ask him why Garcia suspected him from knowing this man. He stopped mid-stride when his phone rang. Exchanging a vulgar look with the police officer, he decided that finding his team member was his first priority and he answered the phone.

"Hotchner."

"Hotch! It is Rossi, we found a man and there appears to be a grave."

"Is it Reid?"

"We don't know yet. Morgan and JJ already started digging. I am going to help them, Hotch."

"Ok, we are coming."

"Hotch?"

"Yes?"

"Be quick."

He hung up, giving a faint nod in answer to the man's command, not thinking about the fact that the older man wasn't able to see it.

Changing his exterior, he became the official and professional FBI agent.

"Prentiss, Seaver, the rest may have found him." he yelled while running to the car, desperate not to lose any more time the rest followed quickly when everybody was inside he drove off faster then he was allowed. Anxious to get their team member back.

The dull sound came from a coffin, covered with dirt, but it was still recognizable as an object of good quality. Once they removed all the dirt around it, they were frantic to open the thing and hopefully to get their genius back.

Clawing at the cover of it, breaking their nails, it became clear they weren't going to open it as easy as they had hoped

Looking behind him, Morgan spotted a shed.

There had to be some tools in there.

"Keep trying," he told JJ before running off, passing Rossi who was notifying the rest of the team on the phone, but who followed him a few seconds after he dashed past him.

It wasn't hard to find something useful in the old shed, as proven by the few seconds he needed to find a crowbar. Desperate to get back as fast as he could, he did not seem to realize the other objects on the ground and the walls. Running back to JJ, he saw the other SUV of their team driving on the small hill nearby, driving around the property to find the entrance between the fences.

"REID!" JJ and Rossi had given up on breaking open the lid, knowing it wouldn't be possible without tools. To have the feeling they were doing at least _something,_ they screamed their youngest team member's name, hoping he would give a sign of life. Their yelling turned more and more frantic with every second that passed without a response.

"Move over," Morgan demanded, falling onto his knees with the crowbar in front of him. Wiggling at the lid with the steel object, it didn't take long before they would be able to open the coffin and hopefully, get their genius back alive and well. The big black coffin cracked open with a heavy sound, splintering around the edges and the black polish scratching. But the person inside the coffin gave them all a big shock. Morgan was so sure they had found him now, he wasn't ready for this, this couldn't be it. The body of what once had been a young woman lay inside the dark object, withered and dried up, just rotting away.

Morgan slowly walked backwards, keeping an eye on the lady's body the whole time. JJ and Rossi continued the digging, still having the hope of Reid being somewhere on that spot, but he, he had just lost it. Reid wasn't buried. At least, not there.

_Come on, man… Buddy, where are you? _

All of a sudden, rage hit him. He had kept that rage inside of him for the past few days and it was all coming out right now. Within seconds, he was at the door of the police car, getting the man out who was responsible for everything. Grabbing him by his collar, he pulled him out and smashed him against the car with all of his strength.

"WHERE IS HE?" he screamed with all the fury he had in him.

"I don't know what you are talking about." Morgan gave him a harsh pull, forcing him to tell the truth by demanding it.

"I mean…" The man stumbled over his words, anxious about causing more anger. "I seriously don't know what you are talking about. I just buried my wife."

"Don't lie to me." He snarled, giving him another harsh pull. "Your name is Dean Sanders, right? You killed your own wife two years ago."

The mentioning of said wife changed something in the manner of Sanders. Something dangerous flashed in his eyes and he started to scream back.

"If this is because of that accusation, you are wrong! I told the same to the police exactly two years ago, it was that other man who killed her! Did anyone believed me? No. You just choose the easy way and blamed the one who was closest to her, the one who really loved her and could never do anything to harm her. That is what you did." The tears were running down the man's face now, out of desperation or anger or both. Morgan would never know, for he just had a realization.

Reid isn't here. What if he is telling the truth? We would just be losing precious time.

Lost in thoughts, he had let go of Sander's collar and the two men were facing each other at the same ground. "Who was the man that killed her?"

"Daniel Norren, the police officer, he had always been obsessed with her since the moment he saw her."

Mentioning the agent's name caused a series of flashbacks. He had already noticed Norren always left a little earlier than anyone else, even with being the head of the investigation.

Running away from the man, he ran into the garden. The moment the grave came in sight, he saw the whole team standing there, examining the scene, still convinced it was Sanders who was the killer.

"HOTCH!" The black haired man looked up, frowning. "CAR. NOW," Morgan yelled, turning back, running when he saw the team coming into action.

The moment they stepped into the car and drove off, Morgan called his blonde wonder.

"Finally you call me. I have been miles away and you guys just refuse to.." but before she could finish her tirade Morgan cut her off.

"Garcia, I need an address."

"Yeah of course, but I thought. No, ehm, never mind. Whose?"

"Daniel Norren."

"The police officer? Why?"

But before Morgan could continue Hotch interrupted the conversation. "That is something I like to know too. Morgan, you demand of us that we come along with you, but if you are wrong, we don't have much time left."

"I am almost sure that Norren is the guy we need. Sanders back there told me that."

"Sanders? You believe him?" Hotch grabbed his phone immediately to call the others of the team in the other van containing JJ, Prentiss and Rossi.

"Yes, Hotch, can we finally know what this is all about?"

"Rossi, get back now. Morgan, Seaver and I are going to check on another possible lead." Hotch looked at Morgan just a little too long and too intense to make it a coincidence and Morgan got hit by a flow of insecurity.

_If I am wrong and Sanders is still the guy, I am just distracting everybody, but… NO, I am sure of it, it needs to be. _

"Garcia, the address?"

"Ehm, yeah of course."

This was the second time this day they arrived at a strange house in their bulletproof vests, but this time there was a great difference. Instead of the hope they had felt before, they all felt primarily confused and frightened not having the strength to hope.

"Morgan, you are with Seaver" Hotch demanded immediately when they stepped out of the car "I will be on my own."

The two groups separated and all went in different directions. During the entire search, he could only think of the difference between the two houses he has been to. The first one was worn with age while this one was modern and obviously very expensive. The man who was delusional and extremely dangerous could bathe himself in riches and drowned in respect while the man who had lost everything lived with the judging of others.

"Sometimes life just isn't fair."

"Indeed it is, agent Morgan." He hadn't even realized he had said that out loud until the person behind him spoke.

"Agent Seaver," the man spoke again. The second time he spoke, it couldn't be mistaken. This was definitely Norren. The two agents slowly turned around to face the officer.

Norren had changed quite a bit since Morgan had last seen him. It wasn't anything very obvious but he just seemed crazy, though that could also be due to the fact that he was holding a gun.

Hotch was currently walking down some stairs which seemed to lead towards the basement. With darkness surrounding the area, he wasn't sure what was here so he took the chance of being detected and spoke out loud "Reid? Are you here?"

_Nothing. There must be a light switch somewhere. _

The man let his hand trace the walls, searching for the switch. It took about three minutes to find it and even now the light was minimal, but just enough to see a shape laying on the floor.

**I am so sorry for not updating so long, but everything has been so busy and a lot of people probably wont be following this story anymore, but for those who are dying to know I will complete it. So so so sorry, please forgive me. **


End file.
